QuickTest user testing platform for startup design teams and freelancers
Please introduce yourself and your startup QuickTest to our readers!
I’m Nick Spiller, Director of QuickTest. I’ve worked as the Head of Product Design at a FTSE 100 bank, and have led numerous design teams at startups. I have extensive work in the Fintech industry having previously formed the founding team of LOOT, a student bank, which RBS bought a majority share of in 2019. I still maintain a hands-on approach and regularly assists with feature definition and design. I’ve also designed for brands such as Bó, Natwest, Gymshark, & Missguided.
I’ve recently launched the Beta version of QuickTest – an affordable user testing platform for startup design teams and freelancers. Research and testing phases are essential steps when designing an app to ensure designers interact with the. QuickTest allows users to upload up to four designs, and test them remotely and in-person with users. The application also allows design teams to guerrilla test with potential customers, and their wider company for fast feedback.
How did you get the idea of QuickTest?
Having worked at various startups and FTSE100 companies leading product design teams, I often found startups and sole designers couldn’t afford to pay for expensive user testing software and participant sourcing, and frequently skipped this essential step in the design process. Meanwhile the larger organisations would spend hundreds of thousands on research software.
Companies like UsabilityHub & TestingTime charge a fee per team member to use their platform, and an additional fee per user test. This high price tag is what drives most companies away from performing research.
I decided to create a cost effective alternative to these competitors to allow all startups and sole freelancers to perform user testing regardless of budget. QuickTest offers a free plan, and a £9.99 per month team subscription.
Why did you decide to start QuickTest?
Whilst working for a tight budgeted startup, securing a budget for user testing was always hard as all competitor products, such as UsabilityHub & TestingTime have pricing plans which can hit thousands of £’s per month.
So, I enlisted the help of a developer and after a few days we had built a basic prototype product. The app was a simple no-thrills prototype, created with no branding, bootstrapped code, and limited functionality. This early stage product validated my assumption that an application like this would be valuable to our internal design team. The MVP proved invaluable to our testing methods, and even allowed the design team to help the wider company feel included in the design process by asking their opinion on designs.
As the MVP was so engrained in our team process, a few months later I decided to invest the time to fully develop the concept and release it to assist other design teams, as a SAAS product.
What is the vision behind QuickTest?
At QuickTest, we’re on a mission to ultimately bring free user testing to startup design teams and freelancers. User testing can be an expensive step in the design process, leading many small teams and sole designers to skip this step entirely, we hope that by providing an easy to adopt valuable solution to teams, at a lower cost that competitors, and providing a better experience, we will help all designers conduct user testing to validate their assumptions.
How difficult was the start and which challenges you had to overcome?
Initially my first struggle was to find a developer with the attention to detail, and same desire to create an app with an exceptional UX. After weeks of development, bug squasing, and tweaks we delivered a product which fulfilled our vision.
We continuously had to strip back our initial proposition, with our BETA version, balancing cost with customer impact.
Who is your target audience?
We design for two distinct personas. One being a strapped for cash startup design team, the other a freelance product designer. Both users don’t don’t have the funding to pursue adequate research, or have the resources to gather design feedback quickly.
What is the USP of your startup?
QuickTest competitors have high outgoing costs for offices, platform costs, and participant rewards. By removing these costs and working remotely, while keeping our platform costs low we’re able to pass this saving to our customers. Unlike other platforms we also offer a freemium model where users can complete two tests for free.
As QuickTest has been created by designers, our platform is built with customer experience at the forefront of our company decisions.
Can you describe your typical workday?
A typical working day involves monitoring our onboarding funnel, planning our full product release strategy, listening to feedback from customers, and funnelling this into our product roadmap prioritisation.
Where do you see yourself and your startup QuickTest in five years?
Many things can happen in 5 Years. Our user base is growing by 5% daily, as more designers adopt QuickTest into their workflow. Once we hit our optimum number of beta testers, we will ramp up our marketing efforts through a variety of mediums. Our aim is to have 100,000 customers by the end of year 5, and have expanded our product offering to multiple testing methods. We’re also in the process of creating a testing participant pool so users can share their tests remotely and get responses from potential customers.
Other features we’re developing include
-Sketch & Figma Plugin
-User testing panel
-Additional survey functionality
What 3 tips would you give to founders?
Create a go to market strategy, don’t just expect your product will be an overnight success. If your product provides real value, users will come.
Know your goal, and work towards it.
More information you will find here
Thank you Nick Spiller for the Interview
Statements of the author and the interviewee do not necessarily represent the editors and the publisher opinion again.
