Reto, how would you describe TestingTime’s mission and what challenges does your company solve?

TestingTime is a test-person recruiting service for UX researchers, product managers, market researchers, and further study conductors. When studies need to be carried out they come to TestingTime to find suitable people within their target group.

Our Mission: Our customers use TestingTime to understand how to build products and services users love. With our test people, we help them understand how they should design their products and services to become successful.

User-centric design is a movement that started quite a while ago. The user is part of the development process, and for example runs through the processes or tests prototypes, to uncover the real weaknesses e.g. before a potential product or service is released.

TestingTime assists with the recruiting of test users. Before TestingTime existed, it was very tedious to recruit test users. In fact, not finding test users was an obstacle for many companies. With TestingTime’s service companies nowadays have no excuse for why testing cannot be done. The pool of potential test users at TestingTime is not only exciting for B2C companies or studies, but also for B2B companies.

Since TestingTime was founded in 2015, it has grown a lot – how did you achieve this growth?

Supply and demand were the key elements right from the start: Customers want a special test profile and we have to find the right test people for it to meet their demands. 

Initially, we started with ad campaigns. This allowed us to directly target specific segments and geographies. Another mechanism we built into our growth process was referrals. Existing testers could recruit other test users. 

We then grew exponentially through what is called word-of-mouth. The network effect of our existing test people was our strongest growth driver.  

What were your main challenges when growing TestingTime?

For us, various levels have played a role in growing TestingTime: 

• The personal level: It was extremely important to find a good core team with the right people and then to be able to hand over and delegate tasks at a later stage. Extending the team and maintaining our company culture was also crucial.  
• The technical / IT level: We never had any problems with our IT infrastructure. Our co-founder Oli set up the technology in such a way that we were always one step ahead. Technically, we, therefore, had no challenges with scalability. 
• The country-level: Before the current corona times, expanding locations in other countries was one of our focus topics for scaling TestingTime. We initially focused on Germany and the UK. A new location in a different country also means that many new processes have to be set up correctly for the organization to work. Besides team, culture, and task distribution, the legal aspect played a big role. What makes expansion a little easier in our case though, is that our business model always works the same way, independent of the location. The reliability of the test persons varies, but otherwise, we have good conditions to scale abroad with TestingTime.

Business growth and contracts – Why did you outsource contract reviews to LEXR and what has been your experience so far? 

With few formalities at the beginning, TestingTime then quickly grew. With the growth came a wave of professionalization. Clients who needed test users started to hand us complex contracts. One reason for the contract complexities was that they did not know exactly how to classify our business model at first (body leasing, temporary employment, etc.). 

The expansion (especially to the UK) involved a lot of bureaucracy, which led to the dilemma that you could hardly focus on doing business. As CEO I had the feeling that I had to understand the details of every contract I signed. I realized that I didn’t know enough about it and that I didn’t have the time. With contracts, it was important to me that first and foremost, we identify the biggest risks quickly. Contracts always have risks, but you have to be aware of them. That’s how I came across LEXR because agility is one of the team’s core aspects. The LEXR Contract Review service was the right one for us because it allowed us to solve contract questions well and practically. The experience so far has been great, and I had the impression that no matter which country the contracts came from, LEXR could help because of their way of thinking. As a company, we are too small to have our own in-house counsel, so the LEXR service is great.