How I Launched A B2B TestOps Platform And Attracted $1.5M Seed Funding
I am an entrepreneur with over 13 years of experience in web development, software testing, and automatization. I have a master’s in solid-state physics, and I’m an expert in custdev, product development, team management, and customer interaction in flexible methodologies. Previously, I launched 3 companies, and today, I’m a founder and CTO at Qase.io.
Qase.io is one of the first companies to launch a system that changes the traditional landscape by providing an intuitive platform that simplifies life for dev and QA teams. Qase is a B2B TestOps platform that helps to streamline the software testing process.
Teams that use Qase report 50% less time spent on managing test cases and up to 30% less time spent on test executions. Today, my company has over 100K B2B users. The platform is trusted by Exante, Crypto.com, and its major clients include Wolt and Asana.
What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?
I started my career as a PHP developer, and in 2016 became head of web development at one of the leading internet holdings. In 2017, I became a team tech lead in charge of billing and payment systems for Avito, the most prominent classified advertisements website in the world.
While working in web development, I faced a problem: I couldn’t find a test management system that met my requirements for tracking both manual and automated tests with a single tool.
All solutions looked outdated and focused only on manual testing, so I developed the platform myself. I worked on this idea for 2 years while maintaining a corporate job.
In 2018, after seeing a huge demand on the market for a system like that, I decided to start my platform. I spent two years developing Qase while working at my day job. In 2018, I realized an entire community of people was looking for a platform like mine, so I decided to test it out.
In no time, I had gained 100 users and seen plenty more interest. For two years, I’ve seen sustainable growth in users and revenue. In 2020 I realized it was a perfect time to quit my day job and make Qase my career.
Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.
The product was born through a long and complicated process. I wrote the code, developed the platform, and designed it entirely. The goal was to simplify it so that someone unfamiliar with code testing could understand how to use it, resulting in about 100 design iterations.
Continually trying to make an ideal version of your product is the biggest trap entrepreneurs face. I spent two years redrawing one part of my project and had to release it before I thought it was “ready.” The lesson is that once a product is open for sale, you cannot turn back and postpone it. You cannot afford creative breaks when you have live users.
Last year, our business angel introduced us to a fund that invested $1.5 million in us.
Another thing I learned through building my platform is that your view of the world may differ from what the user needs, so you might be wasting time on something that isn’t necessary. For instance, I had a few ideas about how the test runner should look, but what I thought worked well was something users didn’t even like.
Test runs were fixed so that you can always see the history. However, this was inconvenient for users since they do many additional steps to perform some action, so I had to change it. The whole thing could have been resolved much earlier with the help of feedback, and dozens of development hours could have been saved.
As for the second example, if you develop your product alone, you’re pressed for time and don’t check for every possible scenario. Non-standard scripts will undoubtedly appear; for example, copying from Excel and getting an error message because of accidental invisible characters. With many users, you have to account for the human factor.
The platform was initially written in weekly iterations, and updates were released every week. We developed new features, such as a version control system for test cases, added filters, changed the design and navigation of the platform, and integrated it with various other systems. Dogfooding helped us fix many major problems before the mass release.
Describe the process of launching the business.
My decision to create a company was prompted by an investment proposal by an angel investor when the application was not yet profitable. The two of us had worked together before, so one day at a tech event, I shared the idea of my product, and he offered to invest $50,000. My next step was to establish a legal entity and hire my first developer.
New founders must have tough skin and be able to give firm direction and frequent feedback immediately
To find my first 100 clients, I spent only $50. After finding a developer community, I bought ads for $50 and got our first clients, most of whom continued to use Qase. After my users began sharing information about us and how we helped them, the number of users began to grow.
As we grew, I realize we would need more capital. Last year, our business angel introduced us to a fund that invested $1.5 million in us.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Our focus has been achieving the highest possible ROI and lowest possible customer acquisition cost (CAC). For us, this means relying on easily measurable outcomes, automating everything we can, frequently A/B testing, and running short, highly targeted campaigns that allow us to evaluate results immediately. Having a lean but high-performing presence means that we recognize the fact that spend does not correlate to conversion.
Instead, we focus on promoting high-quality content to maximize visibility and facilitate engagement with potential customers.
Here are a few things that have worked for us:
Ads and paid promotion
We use Google Search and Display ads and utilize native ads to grow our user base. In addition, we have found that encouraging G2 reviews and paying for G2 advertising has been particularly helpful in gaining new interest.
We’ve also done paid promotion on social media as part of our go-to sales and marketing strategies.
Event attendance and sponsorship
Not only do we make a point to attend conferences and industry events of all sizes, but we also sponsor key industry events (like DeveloperWeekSF) and leverage powerful event messaging.
For example, we always have creative swag and a well-rehearsed staff ready to give demos and sell our product. Creating memorable connections and providing tangible goodies to keep us front and center in the minds of potential customers is an important part of our attraction and retention strategy.
Publishing content
I’ve learned that having a strong and well-rounded media presence is just as important as making offline connections. We participate in industry podcasts and have a newsletter with over 16,000 initial subscribers. We also publish and participate in research reports, including collaborative case studies with Asana and DoorDash, positioning Qase as a leader in the industry. Press releases and articles in top media outlets have also helped us gain attention from clients.
Building community
We have built an enormous community among our users, which is one thing that keeps customers coming back. People like to feel connected and heard, so we host monthly webinars and use a Salesforce cadence to send periodic communications, including the ability to directly request product changes (a feature that makes our customers very happy!), which we manually review and respond to if needed.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Today my company has over 100K B2B users, and we are still growing. Our main clients are, Exante and Crypto.com, and some of our major clients include Wolt and Asana.
The future is AI, non-code, and low-code, so we will work in this direction and invest in non-code and low-code automation.
Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?
A few lessons I learned include launching earlier and reducing the feedback loop as much as possible. In addition, collecting data, learning more about how customers use the product, and making decisions based on this data are essential.
It’s also worthwhile to remember that while listening to the customer’s feedback is important, clients may not have helpful solutions to what they perceive as the problem. Clients may bring a solution they’ve thought up, but it’s more important for you to extract the underlying problem from what they’re saying so that you can create a more informed, effective solution.
Creating the right culture and values is crucial. Values must come from the founder to avoid hiring mistakes: How do you feel about what you do? What message do you broadcast to the world?
I learned this lesson the hard way. I once hired a guy who I thought was a shy, introverted developer, but he became a theater actor who had just applied for a steady paycheck to supplement his acting!
Through that mistake, I learned that I need to project the right message about the company and have a comprehensive onboarding plan that included better background checks and clearer expectations, which is vital.
I was also a bit too soft as a boss in the beginning. New founders must have tough skin and be able to give firm direction and frequent feedback immediately. It might sound harsh, but it helps new hires adapt quickly because they have a clear purpose and feel more supported.
What platform/tools do you use for your business?
For marketing, our three essential tools are HubSpot, Salesforce, and ActiveCampaign. We also use Amplitude, an analytics and event-tracking platform that helps us better understand how users interact with our product. And, of course, many other tools such as Atlassian Jira, BitBucket, Github, AWS, Terraform, Zendesk, Intercom, Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, etc.
And, of course, we use our platform for testing!
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?
One book I highly recommend is High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil, a seasoned angel investor. This book has useful frameworks that help structure rapid growth and how to achieve it. For example, different types of businesses exist. The first type of business is a lifestyle, which has no potential for growth. The second is hyper-growth business, something new you create that requires a multiple of constant growth.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?
First, launch quickly! Get your MVP into users’ hands as fast as possible; don’t waste time perfecting every little thing. Chances are, users won’t even care about what you thought was most important. Remember: Your product is for them, so give it to them fast and let them tell you what to change.
Second, don’t give up. Entrepreneurship is hard. Every business has swings; every founder makes mistakes. You’ll learn something from every one of those experiences if you stay the course.
Finally, pivot when you need to. I like to remind people that WD-40 got its name because they tried 39 other formulas before they found the one that worked.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
We’re hiring for several positions right now:
Demand generation manager
Senior frontend engineer
Senior backend engineer
Head of Product
Designer
Senior Product designer
Product Analyst
Where can we go to learn more?
If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
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