Last week, Tricentis, the parent company of Flood, announced major news: that QASymphony and Tricentis were joining forces. As QASymphony employee #2, I have spent a fair amount of time thinking about the exciting future ahead for this new company and how I can apply my skills to further accelerate our leadership in the testing market.
It didn’t take me long to latch on to the idea of joining forces with the excellent team at Flood, helping them extend the reach of the incredible product they have built in the past few years. Below are three of the main reasons I decided this was an incredible opportunity that could not be passed up:
1 - Flood is in a fantastic market
Consumers are demanding more and more to be available to them online from the businesses that serve them, and performance testing is critical for ensuring those services can meet the growing demand.
For example, even though ecommerce is growing more than 16% year over year, it still represents only 13% of total retail activity. There is a long way to go. (Source: https://www.digitalcommerce360.com/article/us-ecommerce-sales/). For another example, consider media. Here, music streaming services are up almost 40% year over year, yet they still account for less than half of all overall music revenue. (Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/23/43-of-music-revenues-came-from-streaming-last-year/)
As the saying goes, “a rising tide lifts all boats.” It’s always good to be in a market that is ripe for growth.
2 - Flood has a great development team that moves fast
I’ve known this team since 2015. From day 1, it’s always been clear that they had a tremendous group of developers with a strong product vision, as well as the ability to execute quickly. Since then, I’ve heard countless stories of how organizations selected Flood over alternative solutions like CA (Blazemeter) and Micro Focus (Performance Center/LoadRunner/StormRunner).
What wasn’t apparent to me back in 2015 was how small the team was. It was actually a handful of dedicated developers making waves against established industry giants. What’s great to see is that under the leadership of Tricentis, the team more than doubled in 2017 and again in 2018, with plans to do the same again next year. Many teams struggle to keep the bar high with regards to talent as they continue to grow. However, the unique remote culture at Flood has allowed the bar for talent to remain high: they have recruited the best talent from around the globe.
Many entrepreneurs say that people are the most important part of growing a successful company, and I think that cannot be overstated. Products can be imitated and duplicated, but a strong team and culture is something that delivers a permanent competitive advantage.
3- The partnership is a clear win-win
After completing four 12-24 month “tours of duty” over my 5 years at QASymphony, I was eager to find a new tour of duty. Ideally, this next stint would bring me new opportunities to develop as well as provide equal value to the organization during the exciting times ahead. The opportunity to lead the “go to market” activities for Flood is a rare situation where it seems like the two puzzle pieces fit together perfectly.
I knew that by working with the Flood team, I could learn a lot in areas that QASymphony hadn’t explored. What drives performance testers? How do you manage a remote team? How can we leverage open source and the cloud to build something truly groundbreaking for this industry?
The Flood team had been tasked with all of the (sometimes unsavory) requirements of running a startup—including marketing, sales, and business operations—which were cutting into the time they could spend on more mission-critical items. It was clear that there would be a great benefit to the customers if I could take these things off of their plates and allow them to focus 100% on making the amazing product even better.
The Road Ahead
All in all, I could not be more excited for the road ahead working with the team at Flood. As I close out my current tour of duty at QASymphony for the remainder of 2018, I am finding more and more exciting opportunity as I dive into load testing and Flood. While I will be sad to be spending less time with my QASymphony teammates, I know that we will still be working closely on a daily basis as part of the Tricentis family.
Look forward to hearing even more exciting news from Flood in the coming months!
Kevin