Interview with TestingAgents, 3Challenge Seed (Season 4) Winners

Meet Maria and Evgeni from Testingagents.com – one of the three winners in 3Challenge Seed (Season 4) who will be competing for our big prize in just 3 months’ time. TestingAgents.com is an online service, which helps companies improve the User Experience of their Websites, software or online games. They are here to tell us their startup story and what it’s like to be creating better customer experiences for a living. But first – who are they?

Maria Eneva holds a Master Degree in Finance and has worked in the financial industry prior founding TestingAgents.com. She has lived and worked in 4 different countries and noticed how the same issue of bad web user experience has negative consequences in financial institutions as well as in universities. She founded TestingAgents.com in the end of 2012 and gathered a well-diversified team of entrepreneurs.

Evgeni Minchev is studying Management and Regulation of Telecommunications in Sofia. He worked in Bulgaria’s biggest industrial machine distributor as an intern and also took part in organizing the Bulgarian Snooker Association. He has experience in a sales insurance as well. Evgeni joined the team of TestingAgents.com a bit later, but has already made a great impact into the company’s development.He is responsible for sales, media and business development. Always ready for a nice conversation – contact him at minchev@testingagents.com.

Can you tell us a bit more about your project – what is it and what value does it bring to your customers?

Maria: We at TestingAgents.com help companies improve the user experience of their Websites by testing them with real users. This way our clients receive honest feedback from their users and can start making their Website more user friendly right away. After using our service, our clients say that they have improved their traffic, conversion rates and sales almost immediately!

What is innovative about your project?

Maria: We test Websites completely online and with real users. This means that our clients have access to hundreds of our test agents all around the world and can receive their feedback within a couple of days!

We help our clients set up a usability test on our Website. The testing agents, who correspond to the client’s target group, receive an invitation to do the test. They record their screen, mouse movement and voice, while surfing on the client’s Website. After the video test, the test agents answer to further written questions. Within few days our clients receive these video recordings with the users’ honest opinion as well as their written feedback. We also provide them with a usability report, which analyzes all the results during the test and lists the recommendations for improvement.

How was the idea behind your project born?

Maria: We have seen how many website owners and administrators struggle with low conversion rates and unsuccessful marketing campaigns, because they haven’t solved the core problem, which is the way users see their website and can navigate it. So we decided to find a way to connect the users with the websites and use the wisdom of the crowd to make the Internet world more user-friendly.

Tell us a little bit more about what you’ve achieved so far and what lays ahead for you?

Maria: We have developed a team of hundreds of testing agents, who help our clients improve their websites. We already have satisfied clients, who showed good results after using our service, which makes us very happy and gives us the motivation to work even harder.

We started developing our international army of testing agents and are about to start working on projects in Germany and the US. We recently opened an office in Germany!

For the future we plan on developing partnerships with different IT companies around the world and internationalizing our service to further countries.

Who is your product most useful for? What exactly would they get?

Maria: Our service is most useful for businesses with online exposure and for web developers. If we have to mention some of the sectors using our service these would be banks, E-commerce websites, travel-booking websites, online magazines and newspapers, email providers, online game developers, software developers and many more.

Evgeni: What our clients get is information and recommendations directly from their potential clients. And this is the most valuable feedback they could possibly get. This kind of approach to the problem of bad web usability lets us create fast and effective solutions for our clients.

What tip would you give your potential customer that they can implement tomorrow?

Maria: Call us and you can see positive results just within few days!

Evgeni: Don’t be afraid of change, make it your advantage.

Can you share an important entrepreneurship lesson you’ve learnt while developing your project?

Maria: Don’t take NO for an answer.

Evgeni: Never stop learning.

What is your startup’s ‘secret sauce’?

Evgeni: It won’t be a secret anymore, will it?

How did the 3Challenge experience help you in developing your project so far?

Maria: One of the best features of 3Challenge is, that it is a challenge! We could compare ourselves to other start-ups, which started with us. This gave us the final push we needed to be faster and better. It is great for every business to have competition, because this makes it develop and improve.

Give us your call to action! What do you need now? Who could help you and how?

Evgeni: The web environment is so dynamic that it requires adequate and customized instant solutions. Do you want to keep track? Understand your clients by choosing our service and stay on top of the hill.

Contact us via our website http://www.testingagents.com/ or email: minchev@testingagents.com