“Necessity is the mother of inventions,” this proverb stands true for entrepreneurs around the world. Entrepreneurs have been coming up with unimaginable innovations for the benefit of others. Sharing the same zeal for innovation and having an inconceivable vision is Ran Rachlin, the Founder, and CEO of Ubertesters.
Ran has extensive global experience in managing and leading start-ups from inception to implementation. Likewise, he also familiar with managing large global organizations in different countries and across industries. While leading one such business venture he came across a challenge for QA testing. There was a mobile app that needed to be launched, but before the launch, there was a true lack of proper testing tools and resources. This frustration and the feeling that there are not good enough solutions inspired the idea of Ubertesters.
Creating Something from Nothing
In 2013, Ran co-founded Ubertesters intending to help clients find a better solution for their beta testing. He had been instrumental in successfully leading companies towards success. Ran leveraged this experience and combined it with his industry insights to turn his venture into another great achievement. Due to sheer hard work, he was able to turn this dream into reality. “I can proudly say that the main key achievement was-creating something from nothing,” asserts Ran.
Ubertesters is a global digital platform that offers a complete, end-to-end, software testing solution for digital products to help organizations beta test their digital products before launching them. Ran and his team had struggled with finding global testers with different devices, different languages, and carriers and could not find a flexible, affordable solution that could be applicable around the world. Thus the team came up with the concept of “Crowd testing” – a large community of global freelance testers that are ready to test any product for the client and provide a list of bugs or significant ‘user-feedback’. What made this concept unique was that the tester can do the testing during his/her free time and make extra money while testing.
Apart from this, Ubertesters’ holistic solution includes a SaaS product, which is a robust platform to manage the entire mobile beta testing process and teams. Furthermore, it also offers offshore outsourcing services of QA experts’ on a full-time basis based in the company’s East European facilities. Thus, any organization in a need of testing and QA can find the right solution with Ubertesters to help them launch their product with confidence.
Increasing Demand in Outsourcing Tech
Ubertesters is operating in the ‘outsourcing tech industry’. As the pandemic is transforming operations of other industries, the Crowdsourced testing industry is also gradually shifting to adapt to the new post-COVID-19 dynamics. Although, Ran asserts that the pandemic increased the demand for crowd testing services as many organizations had to reduce their headcount and reduce their in-house QA teams. Likewise, as the companies are becoming familiar with remote working they are open to seeking assistance from remote services. “Our services present less risk to the organizations, more flexibility, and cost-effective solution. Thus, overall, we see a nice increase in our activity in recent months,” confirmed Ran.
Ran further stated that the COVID-19 outbreak has managed to change the world in two main aspects, the human aspect, and the technology/logistics aspect respectively. On the tech aspect, we were shown that we still need improvement in the automation of processes and digitalization. While the tech advancements were still manageable, the human and leadership aspects are even more challenging. The outbreak forced the team to shift to remote working which means a different work environment and more flexibility. This also led to increased anxiety and distress. As a leader, Ran was addressed the challenge by maintaining the top-down transparency culture. This helped to keep an environment of trust and a more motivated team.
Familiarizing with New Reality
Ran’s transparent culture approach has helped the team to instill confidence throughout the remote working. The employees were aware that Ran would help address or solve any issue brought attention to, at any given time. However, remotely working was a challenging issue so Ran had to find ways to keep his team motivated during this ‘new reality’. He practiced empathy and was prepared with ‘Accept mode’ as he knew the new situation would affect people in different ways. He added, “I hold personal one-on-one meetings with all employees and I realize that each person is handling this situation differently.”
As a result, Ubertesters organized virtual happy hours. Twice a month, on Friday afternoon, the team gathered together and talking about topics other than work. Employees were encouraged to share more personal experiences. Similarly, Ran asked the employees to be in working mode— dress up, sit up using a table, quiet background, etc. To ensure the team practiced this he would ask all team members to use video for ongoing meetings.
Take Care of Your Team
In the current crisis, Ran believes the most important tip is “Take Care of Your Team”. Leaders should believe in their team and let them shine but also be prepared to accept responsibility when things don’t go as planned. He asserts that it is normal in rough times like this—especially when working remotely—teammates tend to lose the sense of loyalty and commitment to the organization. Thus, the leader should help the employees advance their careers and always respect them so that they stick with the organization for a long time.
Employing Global QA Testers
COVID-19 outbreak managed to halt several projects and alter the business operations, however, Ubertesters continued to grow through creativity, invention, and innovation. “We will continue to put the ‘voice of the customer’ in the center, listen to our customer’s needs and add new exciting features to our QA management platform,” asserts Ran. In addition to this, he confirmed that Ubertesters will be expanding the community of global QA testers so they can serve the client base around the world, while also employing the testers—this is especially critical during the COVID-19 situation.
Read Full Issue: The 10 Most Disruptive Tech Entrepreneurs to Look for in 2020