10 minutes to read
The connection between QA and startups: What makes a QA process so essential for startups?
Chief Executive Officer
Every day talented people come up with brilliant ideas and set up startups. Still, it is worth noting that not every startup is able to evolve into a well-established venture. Stats show that most of them fail within a few first years. There are a lot of reasons for this. However, we would like to draw your attention to the one that is rather common — lack of quality. In the pursuit to speed up software delivery to the market and remain within a tight budget, many teams prefer to cut corners on software testing or delegate this issue to developers instead of involving a professional QA team in the development process. A farseeing product owner would understand that this approach is far from being right. Why? Let’s figure it out together.
QA for startups
Quality assurance is a set of procedures aimed to ensure the high quality of developed software and its compliance with corresponding industry standards. Whether it comes to healthcare, e-commerce, fintech, banking, or any other startup, QA is an essential part of the SDLC. While a startup setup is not an easy task requiring a lot of effort and resources, it is not a reason to neglect software testing and turn your end-users into beta testers or assign this mission to a development team that, in fact, cannot evaluate their own work unbiasedly. In order not to waste your money and effort in vain, but succeed and receive a high return on investments it is highly advised to introduce a comprehensive QA process. Professional QA engineers are able to make up an appropriate testing strategy and execute the whole scope of tests including functional tests, performance tests, security tests, compatibility tests, UI tests, etc. All these are done to make sure that your startup does not have weak spots and vulnerabilities and therefore can win the hearts of the end-users.
How can startups benefit from QA?
We have already cleared it out that QA provides a high quality of software, but let’s consider in detail which benefits you can reap from this:
Confidence in the success of your startup
Being backed by a QA team, you can be sure that your application will take off and withstand the severe competition. Moreover, It is much easier to attract investors and sponsors if you can guarantee the high quality of the application after every update and release.
Great first impression
You will never have a second chance to make a good first impression, that is why if you are concerned about building a positive reputation from the very first release, QA is a must.
High user acquisition and retention rates
The introduction of a proper quality assurance process is a way to go in order to hit the market with a ground-breaking application that will not only attract numerous users but also keep them engaged. User loyalty, in its turn, results in a stellar reputation and high profit.
Cost efficiency
Trying to save some money by ignoring professional QA, you eventually may have to pay even more as the golden rule says that it is always cheaper to fix bugs detected at the early stages of software development than those found after release.
High ROI
Investing money in a startup, everyone has a goal to receive a high ROI, which is hardly possible if your application is slow and glitchy and does not satisfy end-users. QA, on the other hand, significantly contributes to user satisfaction and high return on investment.
An ability to scale
It may sound ambitious, but every startup is launched with an intention to scale sooner or later, and it is much easier to scale in the future if your product has been polished at the very beginning. The thing is that any missed bug can cause a chain reaction that is very difficult to address at the later stages.
Why is it necessary to engage a QA team, and why should not developers handle testing?
It is a well-known fact that in some teams developers are responsible not only for software development but also for testing. While unit testing is indeed a responsibility of a development team, all other types of software testing must be executed by a professional QA team. Not only do developers usually get bored and unmotivated by the necessity to execute testing instead of creating new features, but they are also not able to perform this in a way QA engineers do. All in all, such an approach cannot provide a needed level of software quality, slows down the development process, and has a toll on coding productivity.
Engaging a QA team in software development, you can rest assured that every aspect of application work will be properly checked, and most risks will be mitigated before a release. Having all the needed experience and facilities the QA team knows what to pay attention to and which techniques and tools to leverage in order to get the most accurate results. It is just at first sight software testing seems to be an easy task. In essence, it requires a certain mindset, skills, and creativity.
Why do startups outsource QA?
Startups are usually associated with a host of tasks and challenges. While QA is a must, the establishment of an in-house QA department is far from being hassle-free. Still, there is a good option - QA outsourcing. A great number of startups have already outsourced QA services and have been pleased with obtained results.
So let’s define why QA outsourcing is a way to go:
Budget-friendliness
It is rather obvious that QA outsourcing is much cheaper than in-house team establishment and maintenance. You pay only for the rendered services, not bothering yourself with ongoing labor costs, procurement, renting rates, etc. which are the case when it comes to an in-house QA team. Besides, if you consider a partnership with an offshore software testing company, you can take advantage of lower rates.
Hitting the ground running
Time is of primary importance. When it comes to startups, there is always a need to hit the market within the shortest possible time. QA outsourcing is the best way to introduce a QA process almost immediately. As a rule, outsourcing companies can assign a needed number of QA engineers with corresponding skills and backgrounds just within a few days, and they at once jump into the work on your startup. So, outsourcing is definitely what you need whenever you have strict deadlines.
Rich experience
Software testing outsourcing companies usually specialize exclusively in QA and deal with numerous and most diverse projects. Therefore, you can be sure that you have a reliable QA partner who can guide you through all the challenges of software testing.
Domain expertise
While outsourcing companies address the most varied projects, there is a high probability that they have already dealt with projects similar to yours. Therefore, your outsourced QA team can have corresponding domain knowledge and consequently execute testing in the best possible way clearly understanding the needs of your business and target audience.
An ability to focus on other issues
Outsourcing QA services, you can be sure that specialists who have been around the block will work on the quality of your startup. This means that you can take this burden off your shoulders and totally concentrate on your ongoing issues.
Benefits of QA outsourcing at the early stages of project development
Over the years, the approach to software testing has been drastically changed. Earlier, testing was a separate stage of SDLC, and it was executed only after the completion of the development stage (a well-known waterfall model). These days, it is considered to be a good practice to engage QA specialists right out of the gate. This approach has proved itself as being indeed efficient. While being involved early in the SDLC, a QA team can significantly contribute to the quality of developed software, smooth development process, and on-time product delivery. The thing is that joining the team during the requirement gathering phase, QA specialists can check these requirements for completeness, consistency, and ambiguity. More than often project requirements contain bugs and gaps, and their identification at the early stages considerably simplifies the further work of a development team and prevents the appearance of numerous bugs during coding.
So, even when the software itself is not ready to be tested, a QA team has plenty of work. Generally, it concentrates on the following activities:
To wrap it up, it is indeed advised to outsource QA as early as possible, because we all know the sooner a defect is uncovered the weaker its influence on risk, cost, and timelines.
Our remote testing team and how it can contribute to the success of your startup
DeviQA is a professional software testing outsourcing company headquartered in Ukraine. Our team consists of more than 100 QA specialists with the most diverse backgrounds and skillsets. Among them, there are both automation and manual QA engineers.
We provide the whole scope of QA services. Mobile app testing, web app testing, performance testing, functional testing, API testing, — all these are just the tip of the iceberg.
Our team can also boast of rich domain expertise which includes healthcare, retail, real estate, traveling, education, fintech, banking, and many more.
Our rich experience and gained reputation let us state that we can be a perfect QA partner for any startup.
Reasons to hire the DeviQA team:
So, how can we actually help you? Let’s see... We can assist you to:
Conclusion
Whenever it comes to startups, there is often a lack of time and finances. Still, if you do wish to succeed, you should invest some time and money into the quality assurance process that will provide a high quality of your software and guarantee that it will be well accepted by end-users. Besides, due to an ability to outsource QA, any startup can actually afford professional QA services, while modern QA tools and techniques enable fast but efficient testing.
