After an impressive career as a developer in various corporations, Nikita Fedorov launched Qase in 2019. His startup is engaged in developing a test management system. The idea for launching the company came after Nikita and his team faced a need for more suitable solutions in the market for fast and high-quality testing. To ease his team's work, Nikita developed the platform himself. The platform became highly sought after among developers - they shared their experiences with colleagues, and through word of mouth, the number of clients grew. Venture funds became interested in the startup.
In an interview, Nikita shared what he learned from his experience working at the Russian company "Avito" and the practices he now employs in his own business. He also talked about how a good product finds its customers on its own, how to save budget at the start, and how making employees' work more efficient can save money for the business.
How long have you been involved in web development?
I have been involved in web development for 13 years. Once you write a code line, you realize there's no turning back. I have experience in creating my own projects, running a software development studio, and a food delivery restaurant. At the same time, I worked as a freelance developer. I worked in various companies in Omsk and later in Moscow. For several years, I served as an engineering manager at Ru-Center. Then, I moved to "Avito," where I worked as an engineering manager responsible for developing billing and payment systems and team management. Afterward, I left to start my own venture, Qase, which focuses on test management.
How did you come up with the idea to launch a startup and why specifically in testing?
The story of Qase began when I was working at Ru-Center. The testing process needed to be more well-established in the teams - we had a bunch of bugs, and our clients were complaining about them. As a leader, I needed to do something about it. I hired engineers - testers and then needed to provide them with the right tools for their work. I started searching for what the market had to offer and realized that all the options could have been better - they were outdated and inconvenient to use. That's when I decided to create my own tool. I had the necessary development skills and understood what needed to be done to make the product in demand among developers like me and my colleagues. If it worked out - great, if not - well, no big deal. I combined my main job with working on my project for two years. Later, I joined "Avito," but I continued working on it at a relaxed pace in my spare time. There were significant breaks due to my immersion in the new job, but I always supported the idea of launching my own project.
Tell us about the functionality of Qase. What kind of requests do clients come to you with, and how do you solve their tasks?
Qase is a test management system. The testing process is an integral part of software development. Businesses turn to us to better understand what is happening in their company and to optimize the testing process. With Qase, they can bring their product to the market faster, and thanks to our solutions, it will be of higher quality. The quality of the product directly impacts the company's revenue. Customers will switch to competitors if the product doesn't work as intended and contains many errors.
Our platform provides users with three main values. The first one is test management. We know what tests exist in the company, and Qase keeps track of both manual and automated tests. If a service wants to introduce a new feature, for example, a new user authentication method, this new feature needs to be tested first. This is done to ensure that it works as intended by the developer and that existing functionalities haven't been affected in the process. The second service is test reporting. We gather the results of both manual and automated tests in one place. The third service is test analytics. We provide clients with analytics based on historical data. This includes insights into how well the program works, which tests deserve attention, and what issues may exist. To make changes, you need to measure them - it's only possible to get from point A to point B by knowing both points A and B.
What skills have allowed you to cope with your company's new tasks as a founder, leader, and CTO?
There are three types of roles in a company from a managerial perspective. The first is an individual contributor who performs the work themselves and receives feedback from a manager. The second is a manager or team leader who works with individual contributors and does the same tasks but no longer with their own hands. They clearly define goals and tasks for their team members and plan the team's work. The third role is a manager of managers. Such an employee hires people who will further execute tasks with the help of other people. The transition from the second role to the third one is quite challenging; I remember this from my own experience. However, it becomes easier afterward. Once you have mastered the skills of a manager of managers, you can comfortably use them for further career growth and scaling - becoming a CTO, CEO, or founder of your own startup. The differences lie mainly in the planning horizon and the complexity of tasks. The most crucial aspect is your ability to hire and select people who can then hire others, assign them the right tasks, and organize teamwork.
Please share the life hacks of launching a startup without significant initial investments but without compromising on quality.
While working at "Avito" and coding for my startup in the evenings, I only worked with freelancers. When you are small and unknown, hiring people for permanent positions is super difficult - it's high risk for the individuals. This decision allowed me to save money at the start. As the project developed and we received investments, part-time developers wrote code for me for 10, 20, and 30 hours per week. Only later did I take them on full-time.
The second life hack is saving on servers. We only paid for servers for a short time by contacting startup accelerators. Specifically, we received access to Amazon Web Services servers as part of startup support. There are quite a few forms of support for budding entrepreneurs in the USA. This allowed us to save money on various services and attract more developers.
The third life hack is saving on marketing. I bought advertising in a specialized Telegram channel for developers for $50, bringing us our first 100 registrations. After that, we relied on word of mouth - developer-customers told other developers about Qase. In parallel, I devoted a lot of attention to engaging with the relevant community and networking - chatting in forums,and speaking at conferences. We decided not to invest in paid advertising. I knew I needed to be more competent in this area and simply risked wasting the budget. Later, we hired a marketer, and I gave them that responsibility.
Let's talk about your clients. Share how to conduct negotiations for cooperation with companies so that they don't fear entrusting the startup.
Our main clients are IT companies engaged in software development (web applications, mobile applications, desktop versions of applications). There are also those involved in hardware, for example, testing robots. Typically, businesses collaborate with vendors like us through bottom-up and top-down options.
The top-down approach involves the company's management coming to the vendor with a specific request, explaining the problem they are facing, and the vendor then explains how their product can solve the client's challenges.
On the other hand, the bottom-up approach occurs when a team within the company starts using the product, often through a recommendation from someone outside the company. They then understand how the product solves their problem and request the company's management to purchase it.
What scenario worked more often for you? How did clients find you?
All the major clients that came to us were actually from the bottom-up scenario, the result of word of mouth. Essentially, our product was self-advertising. Our clients talked about Qase to their friends and colleagues, attracting new users to us.
Qase is not your first entrepreneurial experience; you previously had a software development studio and a restaurant. Tell us what this experience taught you?
One should not be afraid of making mistakes. It is natural for people to make mistakes. The crucial thing is whether you learn from your mistakes, draw conclusions, or whether that experience goes to waste. After a failure, you need to ask yourself what went wrong, why it didn't work out, and what should be tried to make it work. Also, you need to be ready for experiments - it's not guaranteed that everything will work out on the first try. For example, the famous Angry Birds game was not the first but rather the hundredth game developed by Rovio Entertainment, the company behind it.
You were involved in development as a technical lead in a major Russian company, Avito, the country's main classified platform. What tasks did you have in the billing system development department at Avito?
As a team lead in the billing unit, my team and I were responsible for integrating with payment systems, handling payments, and ensuring proper accounting of funds. The entire company's revenue went through the billing system and passed through us. To effectively work on these tasks, I focused on forming cross-functional teams. Three development teams worked under my leadership. We successfully launched new payment methods like Sberbank Online, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. We obtained PCI DSS certification, which allowed us to store customer card data within the company.
What effect did this implementation bring to the business?
When a company is large, storing customer data with third-party vendors carries significant risks. If something happens with the vendor, "Avito" cannot process payments and loses money. Moreover, a significant portion of payments is usually made through linked cards. Keeping the data in-house allows the company to use another bank for payment in case of any problems. Thanks to this project, we enhanced the resilience of the "Avito" business. For my work, we also reduced transaction fees by approximately half, saving the company considerable money. It was a large and complex project involving many teams at "Avito," but it resulted significantly.
You worked in a large corporation and are now developing your startup. What best practices from "Avito" have you incorporated into your own project to make it successful?
"Avito" is a fantastic company. Its main motto is "Work hard, play hard." I joined it to understand how successful corporations operate from the inside. If you're leaving after "Avito," it's only for your own business. And that's how it turned out. In the end, I adopted much of the experience from "Avito" into my project.
The experience of achieving PCI DSS certification was very useful to me. At Qase, I had a similar task, and we obtained certification according to the SOC 2 Type II security standard. This standard increases trust in the company and gives our customers an understanding of how our internal processes are structured, for example, how we store data, who among our employees has access to it, how we hire employees, and what facts from their biographies we verify.
I also use the same principle of organizing the work of cross-functional teams in Qase, the same departmental structure, just on a smaller scale than at "Avito." Our teams are independent of each other, each with its own area of responsibility and decision-makers. Teams can easily scale as we grow. Over my time at "Avito," I also realized the importance of corporate culture. In my project, I have also defined a mission and values that we adhere to. Such things allow for a very clear understanding of who you're hiring and whether their values align with those of the team.
What methods have you used to increase employees' work efficiency, and what results did they lead to?
First and foremost, having a conversation with the employee is important. Ask them about their interests, where to develop, and what they want to be involved in. If it aligns with the company's vision, there are no issues. If it doesn't align - it's easier to part ways and not torment each other. There should always be mutual interest. The interaction between an employee and an employer is structured so the company needs something to be done, and an employee exchanges their time and effort for money. They need engaging tasks.
Currently, your team includes employees from 10 different countries around the world.
I actively leverage all the opportunities provided by globalization and hire the best people from all over the globe. As I can see from Qase's experience, individuals from different cultures with diverse perspectives offer truly interesting solutions. Our employee from Nigeria, residing in Brazil, often presents remarkable ideas. Hence, the remote work format has its advantages.
Share your experience on effectively organizing teamwork in a remote setting and maintaining corporate culture.
A few things need to be done to mitigate all the drawbacks of such a working format. Firstly, define goals and a mission. When everyone understands where everyone is heading, a sense of unity emerges. Our mission is to assist engineers in creating excellent products. Secondly, utilize an asynchronous working format. Employees communicate in real-time only sometimes; they respond to emails and complete tasks in their own time, considering the time zone differences. However, we strive to allocate teams so that individuals living in similar time zones work together - separately for the USA and Europe.
What advice can you give developers who want to create their startup?
Release as early as possible to receive user feedback more quickly. Focus on solving the main problem, setting aside anything secondary. At the start of Qase, I made a mistake - I spent a long time working on the product, often reworking it, thinking it wasn't ready for release, and constantly trying to improve it. Now I realize that I should have released it as soon as possible and immediately received customer feedback, and then refined the product based on that. This way, I would have quickly understood that some of the things I was worried about weren't as important to the user, and I could have focused on more crucial features for developers. Also, it doesn't make sense to stress too much about code quality at the beginning. It's better to launch the product quickly and hire people who will come in and refine it to perfection once the project is up and running.
Tell us about Qase's plans and what you plan to focus on.
We are creating great products. Making far-reaching plans is difficult, as the world changes rapidly. Just half a year ago, no one had heard of ChatGPT, and now it's the fastest-growing company in the world. Most likely, we're on the brink of a technological revolution, and AI will change the world. I believe that humans should use their minds for work. In the automation age, a lot of manual labor is still required. And the future lies in automation. We're actively moving in that direction. For instance, we're considering how to use AI in our work. How to help people achieve more in testing while using fewer resources and manual labor. However, manual testing will remain relevant.
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