Baltimore Startup: BetaPunch A Great Beta Testing Solution For Startups INTERVIEW

Last month we brought you this story about BetaPunch, a startup in Baltimore Maryland that is a beta testing platform for other startups. They pride themselves on how easy it is for new startups to set up and recruit beta testers.

Typically a startup goes to friends and family for beta testing. This can be ineffective for several reasons. One of the reasons friends and family make bad beta testers is because they aren’t going to give you real honest feedback. Even if you have the dumbest idea in the world they’re going to tell you it’s great. That’s not good for testing your product.

The other problem with friends and family testing is that you’re going to run out of testers. Now there are some services out there that offer hundreds and hundreds of testers, but it may cost you hundreds and hundreds of dollars. That’s a lot of Ramen noodles you’re going to give up to get your Beta Test done.

LaunchRock is great for startups to start a mailing list, but most of the startups using LaunchRock never say when their beta test is going to happen, and when it does, the people who signed up have moved on to other things. I can’t tell you how many times I get an email back from a Launch Rock I signed up for months ago.

With BetaPunch though, it’s as easy as signing up. Installing their cool new widget and letting it rip.

We got a chance to talk with BetaPunch founder Ross Nochumowitz about BetaPunch, Baltimore’s startup scene, other startups he’s done, and being a bail bondsman during the day. The interview is below the break

BetaPunch is a platform for startups to get their product or service in front of initial users and early adopters for the purposes of getting feedback. We also provide the tool for startups to transform their visitors into influential beta testers via the BetaPunchwidget. For our beta testers, they get access to discover and test the newest startups in the tech space.

I am the sole founder of BetaPunch. I don’t have a tech background but this is not my first startup either. My first startup was when I was 19 years (I am now 27). I worked with a developer (who was 16 years old at the time) and he and I created the first ever online poker community that was geared around backing players into online tournaments or cash games. The site was originally called NeverBeg.com but was eventually sold and now operates as PartTimePoker.com (the largest community for backing players to play poker online and live).

I don’t think there was a very clear path to this. I just always was interested in tech (even though I was never really a ‘techy’ person growing up). I think I always liked the idea of building something from the ground up. Tech gave me the best opportunity to do this. The bail bonds business was a clear path and an easy road for me to travel on ever since I turned 18 and became a licensed bail agent in the State of Maryland. But I always had a passion for doing something on my own and becoming entrepreneurial. The idea of helping startups with beta testers only really came up when I saw there was a significantly increased market for this type of service. It was not something I have been thinking about for a very long time.

You can have the best designers and developers in the world build a product that you are ecstatic with and think is amazing but startups will still have the problem of figuring out how to get good quality feedback and in what form. When you stare at your own site or product for too long, everything makes sense to you. When you show it to your close family and friends they are of course going to tell you they will use it and become customers. But too others, checking you out, it can be the exact opposite. So the problem BetaPunch solves is by helping the startup founder or team get a serious reality check. And I think the best form to do this in is via recorded screen casts.

Our secret sauce is our built in screen casting tool to our widget. It truly allows for really high quality feedback. Every startup who has been beta tested via a recorded screen cast has been blown away by watching and listening to a recording of someone else using their site.

There are other “beta testing” sites out there but most only allow for ‘text based’ feedback. Many things can get lost in translation this way. There are ‘usability testing’ too that show heat maps of where people are clicking and what people remember on your site, but these sites are so analytic driven and I think it turns a lot of startups off because they are unsure how to interpret them.

There are tons of feedback widgets like “GetSatisfaction” and “UserVoice” but neither carry a built-in screen recorder.

I grew up playing a lot of sports so I will attempt to use a sports analogy: I feel like a lot of these other “beta testing” sites are just practicing with your startup; it’s not the real thing. We allow your users to go full throttle and play the game (use your site to the full extent) while you sit in the stands or the film room and scout their progressions.

I am going to give startups a free trial period to use and test out the functions of the widget. Once the free trial ends they will be able to pay a monthly fee to use the widget and embed it into their website. While we are still in the beta testing stages of our widget it is currently being offered as free for everyone to try out.

The widget is built in javascript and is two lines of code the startup grabs to plug into their website. There will be a couple variations of the widget for the startup to choose from that will differ primarily in design. Both will allow beta testers to launch our screen casting tool as well as have text based feedback to be included along with it.

The wording within the widget is completely customizable. So when users open your widget they can see what you’d like them to test, and you can even offer a customized incentive to entice them to conduct a beta test.

I wish I could code! I sadly cannot. I employ a very talented developer located in Australia, and a superb designer in Michigan.

I have to set realistic goals. We are still very new in this space (launched BetaPunch in February of this year). The widget has only been in existence for a couple weeks. I want to reach 50 startups using our feedback widget. This will help validate the widget and will allow me to add additional features to the widget such as the option to conduct live chats with users on their site.

That would be great but it’s not my “plan.” I am very dedicated to my full-time job and it would be hard to just drop it entirely. I think BetaPunch is a site that has potential to grow into something big but at the same time can still allow for me to balance both obligations.

My plan is to try and make BetaPunch as simple as possible for both startups to use and testers to provide feedback with. I want startups (when they are planning and building a startup) to have BetaPunch in their forecast to use while they test.

The best way to find out more about what we are doing or working on is to email me: Ross@BetaPunch.com. Otherwise, just keep checking out the site, I am working very hard (with my developer and designer) on rolling out new features and improvements on a daily basis.

There is no real sign up necessary in becoming a beta tester for a startup listed on BetaPunch.