Munich Startup: Who are you and what does Testifi do? Please introduce yourselves!
Testifi: Daniel is the founder and CEO of Testifi. He has been working in Software Testing since 2004, working on more than 25 different Enterprise projects throughout Europe covering all aspects of software delivery and testing. Dan holds 4 degrees: an MBA in Innovation and Business Creation from the Technical University of Munich, Bachelors of Science (Computer Science), Arts (Politics) and Law from the Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand.
Henning Luther is the co-founder and senior software architect for the Testifi Frameworks. Henning is an extremely experienced Full stack Java Developer with 20 years’ experience. He holds a Diploma in Computer Science.
Testifi came into existence after our founders observed at first hand the shortcomings and pains of the software development process.
Making software testing more efficient, affordable and scalable
Munich Startup: What problem does your startup solve?
Testifi: Software testing in big enterprises is usually very poorly done. Even though big enterprises have a lot of QA’s and test automation experts that work with multiple tools for creating automated tests, software testing is still considered very inefficient, time consuming and costly. The problem is that big enterprises need one integrated solution that can be monitored and well structured so that software testing works properly. Why is this important? If testing is not done properly, the delivery of the software will take much longer and the quality of the software will suffer. And as a result the company will have more costs from the side of frustrated customers, software breakdown costs, and others.
Munich Startup: But that’s nothing out of the box?
Testifi: We offer Systematic Test Automation at Scale – a systematic solution for software testing across the whole organization. Our solution is easy to scale within or between projects. And we offer one tool to encompass everything: CAST – Complete Automated System Test. It enables software development teams to automate their software testing with speed and ease, improving the efficiency and quality of their product. We are already working with industry giants such as BMW, Vodafone, Amazon, and Nokia.
We are also working on developing AI technologies to optimize the testing process as much as possible.
Working with industry giants
Munich Startup: What have been your three biggest challenges so far?
Testifi: Our potential customers are already using test automation tools, and test automation experts and they have a QA Department. What our solution offers is a completely different mindset and considers how an organization should change its software delivery practices and optimize the process. This makes it difficult to get past the defensive mindsets towards the existing test automation setup and explain the value and immense potential of our tool.
Another level of this challenge is resistance to change at the user level. Even after our tool is implemented, we need to get users to switch to our product for test automation instead of using their own custom solution. While this is a huge challenge to handle as a startup, it motivates us to create a quick to learn and easy to use tool. We also provide support at every step to ensure the best outcome.
As a startup we always have challenges with cash flow, but we try to see the best in it as it keeps us agile and efficient.
Millions in sales for Testifi
Munich Startup: Where do you see your business in one year, and where in five years?
Testifi: In 2021 we want to hit the 5 million revenue mark. That will put us at a 5x of our current revenue and make our company grow exponentially. This requires organizational scaling and also structuring and strengthening of the departments at the company.
In five years, we want to dominate the DACH region and have the biggest 20 enterprises using our tools and services on a regular basis. We want to be the standard for software testing in those firms. We also want to think about scaling to an IPO. But that is in the range of 5 to 7 years.
Munich Startup: What do you think about Munich as a startup location?
Testifi: Munich is a perfect location for B2B startups that focus on big corporate and enterprise clients. Here we find a high concentration of big conglomerates like BMW, IBM, Microsoft, Telefonica and others that have their main offices located in Munich. Most of these companies have their own accelerator programs and work with a lot of startups in the Munich region. We are also an example of this, because we focus on enterprise customers. And our first clients was and still is BMW.
Munich Startup: Quick exit or staying power?
Testifi: Quick exit is what VC funds prefer. That is why we are currently bootstrapped and are looking only for VC’s that go for long-term partnerships and would want to stay with us until we hit the IPO.
Our goal is to become a Munich unicorn, hit the billion dollar mark, and become the industry standard in agile software testing.