Looking Back on 1 Year of TestParty

On April 6, 2023 (exactly a year ago) Jason and I put pen to paper to create “TestParty.”

We were applying to Y Combinator and had conviction in our idea after our first-ever cold email outreach campaign had open rates of 48.1% with an average reply-rate of 13%.

We described the business as “an automated accessibility and usability auditing and resolution tool designed to replace manual QA testing.”

Michael wearing white t-shirt presenting at competition.

Since then, so much has changed…

We’ve 4x the size of our team

We’ve 2x our customer set

We’ve increased our ARR by over 250%

We’ve fundraised and won over $4m in funding from investors and pitch competitions

And we’ve pitched to over 10,000 stakeholders including celebrities like Kevin O’Leary and companies like Starbucks and McDonalds

… all while Jason juggled a full-time job and I juggled the last 12 months of business school.

Michael and Jason pitching to Kevin O'Leary on stage.

But our growth hasn’t been without its difficulties. We had barriers like:

10+ rejections from accelerators such as YC, HF0, TechStars, and more

50+ investor rejections as we raised our seed round of funding

Learning how to file taxes and create our financial statements for investors!

For both of us, it was an exercise in “learning by doing.” Despite this change and turmoil, a lot has stayed the same.

In the market, the digital accessibility space is still grossly overlooked for innovation despite the upcoming European Accessibility Act regulation expected to take effect in June 2025. Our competitors are comfortable charging companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in manual services. We are focused on investing in scalable processes to create a more accessible Internet. In our own business, we’ve remained steadfast in our mission to automate accessibility auditing and remediation when possible. Expanding our vision beyond accessibility to usability, security, general compliance, and efficiency.

In the future, we’re clear about where we’re going. TestParty will become the most comprehensive platform to help companies get and stay ADA or EAA compliant based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. We’ll augment existing tools and services to be the one-stop-shop to turn human laws into code.

With that, I’m excited to enter TestParty’s second year of life. Based on the success of the last 12 months, I can only imagine what we’ll see next.

We’re excited to have you on the journey! Follow along on our blog to get more real-time updates and information about where we’re going and how you can help.

- Michael Bervell

Michael holding award check from HBS Black Venture Competition.

Michael standing in crowd of HBS Demo Day students.