How to Build a QA Department for a Startup?

bu Wilhelm Gunkel

Every year, over 75% of new businesses around the world shut down. The reasons for failure may vary. Most often, startup owners admit underestimating market competition, using a wrong business model, lacking funds, or no product-market fit. The strategic mistakes leave room for analysis for managers while involving QA expertise often increases chances to withstand fierce market competition.

Let me clarify this: testing is not a panacea. A QA company/specialist isn’t going to eliminate all the risks by offering a magic quick fix. However, it gives better odds for a product to be noticed, for the software of poor quality is unlikely to become an alternative for existing solutions.

Testing Is Crucial for Startups, Here’s Why

The role of QA in development is to guarantee that a product or service meets the specified requirements in terms of functionality and performance. I would recommend keeping in mind several arguments that prove the necessity of well-structured QA processes.

• Confidence in your product. It is easier to find customers and investors if you guarantee high quality of software after every update and every new release.
• Customer loyalty. With a solution that works flawlessly, you can be sure to gain users’ trust and increase customer retention.
• Background for scalability. The less problematic your product is at the beginning, the easier it is to scale it in the future. Every missed bug can trigger a chain reaction that is more difficult to constrain at the later stages.
• Higher sales. The correlation is often direct. If an e-commerce app user cannot complete a purchase, you don’t get a profit. Sharing negative feedback can prevent other customers from using the application, even after the bug is fixed.
• Secured revenue. The earlier you find a defect, the fewer resources it takes to fix it.

Challenges of Creating a Software Testing Department

A QA team helps developers to optimize both code and end-user experience. Whether customer-centricity or income is more significant for you, minimizing all kinds of defects is crucial for achieving the goal

In addition to already numerous challenges, a startup team is going to add some extra items on the list. The most common issues related to creating a department of testing services are:

• insufficient understanding of testing processes and practices;
• aiming for automated/manual software testing only;
• tight deadlines;
• unrealistic schedules;
• unclear requirements;
• lack of expertise.

You need a QA department to be able to release software without critical bugs. Even the most skilled and attentive developers cannot write completely error-free code. And as the experience shows, developers testing their own code isn’t the most efficient solution either.

by zohaib khan

Best Practices of Building a QA Team in a Startup

#1. Engage everyone in the QA process from the beginning. If you don’t have a sufficient budget to organize a quality assurance team, let everyone contribute. Make testing a shared task instead of skipping this stage.

#2. Follow the agile testing methodology. A QA process flow in agile implies frequent testing with constant communication, cross-team collaboration, and continuous improvements. It sounds like an ordinary way to work in startups that are dynamic and result-oriented by nature.

#3. Don’t forget about regression. Checking new functionality after every sprint is the primary task. Neglecting regression, however, may leave you with a broken product, and detecting the moment when it’s happened may be difficult. At least some degree of regression is crucial.

#4. Apply automation when relevant. Any amount of stable functionality is a premise for automation. It is a go-for solution if small checks require significant manual input or if there are different variations of inputs for one scenario. An automation specialist can advise on this.

#5. Create a clear pipeline. Set stages of product development, outline specific processes and activities for each, and define clear criteria that allow marking the transition from one phase to the other.

#6. Create efficient bug reports. Bug descriptions should be clear and concise so that developers can use them as valuable insights for fixing defects.

#7. Consider using outsourced QA. Outsource vs in-house is an on-going debate. Each solution has its pros and cons. Outsource is a good option for a quick start if that’s what you need.

QA Outsourcing for Startups

If you lack resources for building an in-house QA department or extending an existing one, think about delegating some tasks to a partner company.

A lot has been written on the pros and cons of outsourced QA. I’d say it is often a win-win for startups for several reasons:

• You can find a fully-formed team with domain knowledge and proven expertise in your field in due time.
• Outsourcing is more cost-efficient since you have a choice to hire a dedicated team or use resources on-demand.
• Fast and full integration into your processes usually comes by default.

Find a software testing company that specializes in your field, and in addition to testing, you will get valuable recommendations on how to improve a product in general.

When to Create a QA Department?

The earlier, the better, they say. Some, however, manage even to release a product without proper QA. I’d say, don’t rush and don’t postpone testing; aim for the golden mean.

• Early stages of product development. Unit tests, the ones that examine the smallest functioning parts of code, are a task for software engineers. It means you already have a qualified expert in the team and can find defects early.
• Test-driven development. Writing test code before functional code provides constant real-time feedback that allows you to improve code quality momentarily. In this case, a QA engineer should join a project together with developers.
• Testing the MVP. When the time to estimate product feasibility comes, you will need to cover the market fit and product value. Testing is a sure backup for the technical part. Involving QA expertise wouldn’t go amiss.
• After some code is written. It is common for a QA process in agile development. The start of testing prior to finalizing code proved to be a time-saver.
• After code is written. In traditional software development life cycles, testing starts when the product is supposedly ready for the release.
• Alpha/beta testing. At this stage, you are likely to hand a product to stakeholders and investors. It is better to make sure there’s nothing serious to worry about.
• After launching the product. This is a highly unrecommended practice. If you’ve managed to release the product without proper testing, congratulations, but you still need QA expertise. Scaling the product may reveal some overlooked defects of different severity and potential risks.

Startups vs Mature Projects: Building a QA Department

The process of building a QA department from scratch will be similar, regardless of company size and experience. You set the goals a testing department will help to achieve, determine the number of specialists required, then decide on a type and terms of cooperation.

The need for software testing services, however, is different. Mature businesses and startups have different goals, especially short-term goals. Thus, the scope of tasks, focus points, approaches to testing, and an optimal number of QA specialists tend to differ as well.

Businesses usually look for ways to optimize their working processes — reduce the amount of work for in-house professionals, extend test coverage, get someone to manage a QA department, get clear documentation, increase user satisfaction, etc.

QA for startups is a way to increase the chances for an impressive start, so they focus on a fast start and domain knowledge. You can go with minimum QA expertise and extend the QA department later, as the need for testing increases.

Bottom Line

When competition is high, quality becomes either a key advantage for a business or its weakness. It is possible to do well without dedicated QA resources for a while, sharing the tasks between the startup team members. But as your product and ambitions grow, finding a qualified specialist becomes essential.

Our team has a lot of experience in building QA departments from scratch. What we’ve learned through the years is that waiting for the critical point to outsource software testing isn’t the best idea.

You may not need to start testing at the earliest stages, but don’t wait until everything falls apart without it. Things tend to break at the most unexpected and inappropriate moment. Make sure you have a solid QA backup to handle such cases.