TESTBIRDS

Testbirds was founded in 2011 in Munich with the goal of supporting companies with the optimisation of their digital products. To address the growing challenges in software development and the increasing demands of clients looking to enhance quality levels, they have been looking for new opportunities and methods to enhance the functionality and user-friendliness of apps, websites, etc. Thanks to an increasingly digitalised world, crowdsourcing, which is the sourcing of tasks to a global online... community, has found its place in the business world and especially the IT industry. The application of this new form of labour to software testing resulted in a new, innovative method known as crowdtesting. A major benefit of crowdtesting is the opportunity to have not only experts but also unbiased consumers performing software tests on their own devices and under real world conditions. This grants access to a nearly endless combination of devices, operating systems and software. Another advantage of this method lies in the selection of testers, who can be chosen based on numerous criteria and characteristics that reflect the product’s target group. Crowdtesters are available ad-hoc via the internet and ready to search for defects and usability issues without encountering operational blindness. As a result, businesses are provided with a huge amount of flexibility in allocating their resources. They were able to quickly convince their first clients and investors about the numerous benefits and opportunities of crowdtesting. In addition, the Federal Ministry of Economy and Technology (now Economy and Energy) recognised their business model’s potential and funded Testbirds in the form of the EXIST scholarship as well as the start-up competition, “IKT Innovativ”.More