Testlio 2024 Reflections: An Open Client Letter of Gratitude

A year of milestones and gratitude: Celebrating 10+ years with Testlio and the incredible clients that make it all possible.

, CEO, Testlio

Dear Testlio Client,

2024 marked 10+ years for me with Testlio, first as a seed investor/advisor and then as CEO. I’ve learned a great deal along the way, am incredibly proud of the company we’ve built, and continue to be deeply appreciative of each of you, our Testlio clients. 

Without you, none of what makes this company so incredibly special would be possible. I thank you wholeheartedly for entrusting the team at Testlio to manage key aspects of your quality engineering journey.

I’d also like to mark another year of holiday donations that we’ve made on your behalf. Once again, in lieu of gifts we supported groups like the International Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders, One Tree Planted, UNICEF, and Amnesty International, consistent with our social impact strategy. As our CCO Summer Weisberg referenced in her December holiday card, we hope that 2024 held joy, peace, and health for you, your family, and your company.  

As this is my 5th open client letter, I’d also like to do something a bit different this year. While I will share insights about Testlio below, I also want you to know a bit about the company you keep. As you may or may not realize, Testlio clients include the following companies, referenced by relative industry size: 

  • #1-3 US broadcasters. 
  • #1 global streaming company.
  • #1 e-mobility company.
  • #1 software company. 
  • #1 online home furnishing company.
  • #1 and #2 global online marketplaces.
  • #1 energy drink.
  • #1 European media company.
  • #3 global football club.
  • #4 payment network.
  • And 2 of the top 10 social media companies. 

In addition to market leaders like these, Testlio works with dozens of emerging and growth companies across healthcare, travel, finance, learning, media, sports, and commerce. We are honored that so many innovative, impactful, and successful organizations have chosen Testlio. We are appreciative of the 70+ NPS that you gave us in 2024—along with a 4.7 on G2. And we work hard, every day, to support you in your continuous commitment to exceptionally high-quality software releases. 

Testlio clients are frequently CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Quality Directors and their teams. They are some of the best technology minds on the planet, equipped with a rigorous set of expectations for software development—and product release—speed, confidence, and value. 

In many ways, we see our Testlio business as one of a steadfast, ongoing quest for the better. We strive to help you, and others, go faster, do more, and see regularly improving quality results, even as our AI-powered world, and related business expectations, continues to evolve.

With this quest in mind, in 2024 we invested in ways that included:

  • Team: each month, Testlio deploys 1,400+ full-time, temp, and freelance resources to support our clients. We’ve also continued to build our expert, on-demand, global, talent network, now 10K+ strong and with an ongoing high-bar 3% acceptance rate. And in 2024, we began rotating LionFest locations, our global company gatherings.
  • Automation: Testlio’s managed test automation offering has grown 3x+ in the last two years. As we’ll soon announce, our three-part solution provides unmatched flexibility for broad automation approaches. 
  • Strategy: the Testlio Services team has been pushing the boundaries of innovative, and impactful, quality engineering strategies. I offered perspectives in my recent QE for CEOs article on strategy. If you haven’t recently engaged our Services team on strategic quality considerations, I encourage you to do so here in 2025. 
  • Platform: if you didn’t catch the Testlio V4 announcement, please give it a read. In 2024, our proprietary software system, available for free with unlimited access for your company, made significant leaps across four management domains (people, devices, testing, and decisions). Further, we progressed our AI-powered capabilities (tests, issues, and runs), improved page load times by 20%+, and dramatically advanced our data warehouse to deliver 50+ new and improved reports (with more to come). Additionally, we embraced AI-enabled software development, leveraging Windsurf and other tools to improve our coding efficiencies by 30%+. 
  • Partners: in 2024, we expanded our Platform bi-directional integrations to 20+ across 9 categories. We’re honored to have proven integrations with leaders like SmartBear, Atlassian JIRA, BrowserStack, GitHub, TestRail, CircleCI, Slack, and many others. We see clients enable 4-5 system integrations with Testlio software, enabling powerful, connected quality operations. 
  • Payments: one of the fastest growing aspects of our business is global financial transaction assurance. With 800+ payment methods and $5T+ transactions across 100+ engagements, Testlio may be the #1 payments testing company. In 2024, we beefed up our systems, resources, and internal experts to help our clients further tackle the root causes of 2 out of 10 digital payment failures.
  • Social Impact: Testlio continues to give back in numerous ways (per our social impact reference above). For example, in 2024, we held our 4th Ignite program, providing scholarships and assistance to people pursuing advancement in their software testing careers. 
  • AI: we’ve embraced artificial intelligence aggressively (and safely) in service of our clients. And we’ve amassed significant experience helping companies with holistic quality engineering applied to their AI-powered applications. We both use AI to test and we test AI-powered applications.
  • Financials: Testlio continued to perform profitably (EBITDA and cash) while growing revenue. In our 11th year, our stable financials have given us a solid foundation and firm confidence as we look to the year ahead.

While 2024 wasn’t an easy year, it was an exciting and rewarding chapter nonetheless. Thank you again for your partnership with us. 

For 2025, we are bullish. We see this as a year of growth and innovation for the company. In January, we kicked off with two global, virtual gatherings. 

There, we covered things like: 

  • Purpose & Vision: for the year ahead, we honed the essence of why we work and what we see for the world. Feedback on our new purpose and vision has been positive. Please let us know what you think. 
  • Strategic Direction: we have a bold set of ideas and initiatives to fuel  the full possibilities of managed quality engineering, as I teased here. Throughout, our company is maniacally focused on helping development leaders make software releases better, faster, and more valuable.
  • Company Investments: we intend to invest an additional $5M+ in 2025 into our people, platform, and partnerships, with an intentional focus on intelligently and securely using AI while helping you with new quality engineering approaches to your AI-fueled software. Please join us at QBRs where we will showcase advancements and share innovations meant to further increase the partnership value we provide. 
  • Team Connections: as a 100% remote company, with full-time people in 40+ countries and freelancers in 150+ countries, staying connected is important. For 2025, we will hold LionFest (our annual gathering) in Mexico City. We also will embark on 10 additional gatherings for our full-time people in remote hubs all over the world. We’ve fondly named these LionPrides. Through human connection aligned with our company values, including #teamiseverything and #fosterinclusion, we ensure that our teams operate with context, fluidity, and joy.
  • Key Indicators: with Testlio clients we often optimize across 15+ indicators, including coverage (devices, countries, payment methods, etc.), speed (response, initiation, turnaround, etc.), confidence (issues/run, escaped issues, addressed issues, etc), and more. As I wrote recently, managed quality engineering can provide exceptional value, especially as companies tune their spend to 10-20% of core engineering investments. For example, we’ve seen an estimated 5x ROI on payments testing engagements.

As we look out over the horizon of 2025, we are invigorated by the opportunities that AI-powered technology and expert humans have to tackle the thorniest of software testing, quality assurance, and quality engineering challenges. It’s one of the most exciting times in the tech industry that I’ve seen in my 30+ year career. 

Every day is full of experimentation, connection, collaboration, and learning. We truly appreciate the opportunity to partner with you and to continue to help you release world-class software, rapidly and with confidence. 

If I, or my team, can ever do something more, different, or better for you, please don’t hesitate to ask. Here’s to an amazing year ahead, together. 

With gratitude,
Steve Semelsberger
CEO
Testlio