It started all on April 5th 2016. I was watching Star Trek First Contact when this gorgeous and vicious Borg Cube appeared on screen. For some reason it hit me. That one question that started it all. “I wonder if anyone ever put a computer in one of those things?” Instead of continuing watching the movie I started googling and what do you know. Besides one or two home builds, no one ever did this on a commercial level. But how to start? This turned into a little journey but one well worth taking. 

I pitched the general idea to a friend, who told me if we had a working prototype, he could make the connection to CBS Consumer Products for me. But this meant entering corporate territory with lots of rules and procedures. The first thing we needed to do was to incorporate, which brought the next “problem”. What do we call the company? I’m a bit of a movie buff and just love watching movies. While watching Saving Mr. Banks a street in London named Cherry Tree Lane was mentioned.  It was a “That’s it!!” moment. Hopped on this one legal website that helps you file official documents and filed the same day. 

I'll spare you the trials and tribulations of a company trying to get funding for a PC in a Borg Cube. The comments ranged from “What’s a Borg Cube” over “you want to put a what into what” to finally “Why don’t you try to shoestring this for a year or two and we see after that how well you are doing.” The last one stuck with me. I sat down with my wife, and we discussed if we in fact could pull this off ourselves. We decided to at least try it. Luckily the friend I mentioned earlier became an angel investor and that helped a lot.

We got our first offices in January 2017 and hired our first employees in April. 

The first prototype was finished on June 22nd 2017 and we had a meeting with CBS Consumer Products the following week.

It was one of the most nerve wrecking experiences of my life. Until I saw their reaction. They were thrilled. They called two of their IT guys, they ran off with it and when they came back 30 minutes later, all they asked me was “HOW???? It’s so small!!” We were told on the spot that we could have the license, but they wanted us to present it at STLV in August the same year. On top of that they also asked for a full-size VR capable PC in a Borg Cube. We agreed, knocked out another prototype and launched both at the Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas.

Near the end of 2017 we outgrew our old facility and moved to bigger offices, which are still CherryTree’s home today.

Over the last 10 years we were able to expand our license to more products and more shows, keep continuing making cool things and are still the only officially licensed Star Trek PCs in the known universe. 

Happy First Contact Day and Live Long and Prosper!