[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome to The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by two people. My first, three way conversation. good friend of mine, Ivan, and his co founder, Renan. I'm not even gonna try the last names. I was gonna do it, but then I decided I didn't have to.
So, co founder is a very cool tool. Uh, MuukTest, MuukTest,is a front end testing automation platform. we got connected years ago and, you know, great guys, great ownership. I got to meet them in Toronto at Collision recently. So that was fantastic. This will be, very fun. I'm really looking forward to figuring this out.
So let's give it a shot. Ivan, why don't you introduce yourself first? where'd you grow up? and, you know, take your time. Did you have any inkling along the way that you wanted to be an entrepreneur one day? Was this something you grew up, you know, kind of doing as a kid? And how did you tell me a little bit about your story?
[00:01:16] Ivan: Yeah, first, thank you. Thank you for inviting us to the podcast. It's great to, to be part of this project that you have. It has been growing, so we are happy for doing that. And yeah, Ivan Barajas Vargas, co founder of MuukTest. I'm from Mexico, from a small town called the Calitlan, kind of south of Jalisco. As a reference, it is near Guadalajara or Puerto Vallarta, kind of that area. so I'm from there. I grew up there. Then I went to later, like, when I was 11 years old, I moved to the big city, Guadalajara, where I studied computer science. That's when I started getting involved with, yeah, software and testing. Regarding your question, about entrepreneurship, I'm from Mexico. Actually, I recently realized that, I have always had kind of the entrepreneurial box on me because, because of my family, they have a four or five members of my extended family. They have a grocery stores in Mexico. So I mean, it's a small businesses that they launched. So I think I grew up, seeing that and, once that I felt ready to try something on my own. Kind of, I started working with Renan to launch and all this, but I think that was kind of the source for my entrepreneurial, attitude or, yeah, you
[00:02:30] Jay: I love it. Renan, same question to you, buddy. Where did you grow up and did anything kind of impact your eventual co founding of MuukTest?
[00:02:39] Renan: Yeah, well, thank, first, thank you, Jay, for this, place, happy to collaborate and share our story and yeah, I mean, I'm from Guadalajara, Mexico, I grew there, my family is around the area and one of the things, um, yeah, my family, they also, because of their family things, they had to decide to start their own business.
So nothing related with technology is something related more with services, but at the end, somehow, when I was little kids, I grew, you know, knowing and seeing my father, my mother, they going out, selling things, you know, making sure that, you know, They can provide to their family. So I had that, you know, chip in my head.
And even though when I graduated from computer science, actually, Ivan and I, we went to the same university. And I knew that eventually I will go through that path. But at the beginning, I say, well, let's first, you know, get that job. Let's go to different companies. And When the moment is right,new,I know that it's going to be the right time and I'm going to go for it.
[00:03:46] Jay: Love that.
[00:03:48] Ivan: know, something actually now that I mentioned the people in school together, something funny also about how we started is. Like we coincided in a couple of, of jobs, like we finished school, we went the wrong way. Then we coincided in a couple of companies and then we went away and then we found the MuukTest.
But when we were talking about,different things, ideas about entrepreneurship always came. Like it was 2008, 2009, I mean, 10 years before we launched MuukTest. And, we kind of, that was part of our common discussion. Hey, did you notice this? Maybe this should happen or this could fix this issue. So, and then, that was like 10 years before we launched MuukTest but always we had a chance kind of, we were trying to figure out how to solve certain problems we were seeing or take advantage of certain opportunities.
[00:04:35] Renan: I love that. You guys were destined to do this together. Uh,
[00:04:40] Jay: go ahead.
[00:04:41] Renan: sorry. Yeah. Or manager didn't like that
[00:04:43] Ivan: Oh,
yeah.
[00:04:43] Jay: yeah, it's a get back to work. It's a get back to work, you two. Enough of your daydreaming about becoming entrepreneurs. What, sparked MuukTest the idea, we talked about a little bit in Toronto, but kind of share with the audience. How did you guys come up with the concept and what were the next steps from just an idea to actually making it a real product?
[00:05:05] Ivan: So my background, I mean, I did software development for a little while after college, but then my whole career was in QA and testing every role. manual tester, test automation engineer, manager of testing. And then I ended up being a QA architect. So I had seen the whole testing phases on my own in different companies. but then when Renan and me started talking about launching a business, this was not the first idea that we thought of. kind of, we were discussing a different idea. Trying to automate social media, I think always around automation, some kind of automation and make something more efficient, but we tested two, three different ideas and we learned that we were not experts in that, those areas we were exploring. Social media marketing. We knew maybe a little bit, but we needed to learn more to understand better the pain and the solution.
So at the third round of these iterations, or four round, we said, oh, we should be maybe focusing on what we know. So development for qa testing. Renan was a qa, architects over qa, sorry, a software development architect. So he was doing, he was seeing a lot of things from his per perspective as well. So, kind of a third or fourth iteration of trying to launch something, we said, I mean, we are living this every day. this is a pain. The companies are paying millions and millions of dollars trying to test and automate.
Let's fix it. So that's kind of the short story. I don't know, Renan, if I missed something or you want to add something.
[00:06:37] Renan: No, I think for me, I noticed that even though we were discussing different ideas that My look promising, at least though, those ideas were not, I mean, I was not passionate about those ideas that much, because at the end, I mean, you need to quit your job. I mean, if you have a background where you were doing well with your other companies, I mean, you need to quit and start something from scratch.
So definitely that's a big step. And. Definitely, there should be something more than, you know, just starting a company, you know, you need to be passionate about what you want to do, how you want to accomplish, because there are a lot of things going on. And yeah, I think that was one of the key that I noticed at that time.
[00:07:23] Jay: I love that. Can you guys share an example of where your combined expertise and your individual strengths Complimenting each other, whether that's a milestone for a project or a project in general. Give me an example of the two sides of the coin kind of coming together to be successful.
[00:07:44] Ivan: Yeah. Well, I'll take it first, Renan.
[00:07:47] Renan: Yeah, I think we have, Both we have a strong technical background, so we started from there. So I think at the beginning, it was more, you know, the framework has gone out of work and everything. And as we kept evolving, we started to take like different roles. Ivan has taken more, the CEO role where it's more management sales, you know, marketing, I took more over the development, my background was more related with more.
Technical, the software development architecture. So it make, made a lot of sense. Ivan had a MBA. So somehow he made a, like with a framework with bold, with strong technical background, then combining like more one technical, the other more related with business. So that made a lot of sense. Um, and I think at the beginning he was kind of close and right now it's times as it keeps growing, it's just getting the different places.
[00:08:46] Ivan: Yeah, and even that we kind of divided more now that the company is larger, It's still Renan adds a lot of value to the sales and marketing process because he understands the business too. And I try to jump in also in the product discussions and try to question. So I think kind of we divided, but we overlap in that center, that kind of the product management, role kind of that.
And we kind of support each other's areas, because we have enough knowledge of the other area to question and push each other and grow together. Yeah,
[00:09:23] Jay: So building and launching a startup is no small task. What are some of the key lessons you guys have learned on your journey so far that you believe would be valuable for other aspiring entrepreneurs or people who want to launch a product? It would be helpful for them to hear.
[00:09:40] Ivan: yeah, let me think that the first three ones that come to mind, maybe those are the most important, like the first thing that come to mind, right? I think, one is always focus On the problem you're trying to solve, not in the solution, kind of, you just start with an idea of the solution and just start implementing it will change based on the problem.
So understand deeply that the problem that you're trying to solve second one might be open to unexpected solutions to that problem, because I think I see a lot of things, times happening. I'm sure this idea is the solution for this problem. But, but no, it evolves as the more you talk to people with the pain, potential customers, it starts giving you insights about what really can solve that problem.
And a lot of the time, more than 50, 60 percent of the times is different from the initial idea. so kind of, yeah, be totally open to, to really listen and change your initial idea on what the solution should be and always be based on what the customers are trying to achieve. These people with the problem, what are they trying to achieve?
So I think that's two. And third one, and I think it ties with what Renan said. you need to have passion for that. it shouldn't be a hobby, you need to commit, fully commit, you are betting your career, sometimes your financial life for a few years, uh, so you have to have passion for that.
and I think with passion and the right. The right attitude towards the customers and learning things to start to, to get progress and get in the right place. I think those would be my three.
[00:11:31] Jay: What about you, Renat? Renan?
[00:11:33] Renan: Well, if you're a technical founder, one of the thing, main things that you need to, consider is you need to do sales, that's something critical. And this ties what Yvonne said about the way the value that you provide and what you're solving. So most of the technical founders.
And, I did the same mistake is we tried to sell the technology, right? I'm solving, I'm selling blockchain. I'm selling webtree. I'm selling, you know, but that's not true. I mean, at the end, you need to understand the message of where you want to solve and how you're going to add value. And then, yes, you'll have some technology that helps you to do that.
Right. But at the end, you need to go out and sell. And I think one of the key learnings we have is also, I believe the second one is the go to market. Sometimes you, again, the sales is you need to go out and sell. if you, sometimes you don't want to say be exposed. Maybe because you don't want to hear that someone doesn't like your idea, or maybe they don't believe the same way that you believe.
I mean, you need to hear that feedback and put it, going back and maybe in the square one. That's fine. That's perfectly fine. But you need to understand that and do not feel bad that someone says, I. would not pay for that. Oh, yes, I will pay for that. And when you start to hear that someone is going is willing to pay is because maybe you're solving and you're solving some problem that will add value.
and at the end, maybe you don't have to spend technology at all. I mean, you, and this happened. You know, in the different conference, when we talk to entrepreneurs, they will say, yeah, I'm going to spend like six months, a year, just developing the years, and then I want to talk to customer, no, we'll go out and do it manually.
You know, if you're going to sell something, you know, you can do it, you know, in a spreadsheet. And if that works, then you keep evolving, do not hire like a development team used to have a random idea that you need to validate. So I think that's another thing. And sometimes what I've noticed is sometimes.
Maybe you don't want to be exposed. I don't want to hear it. So you say, Oh, if I keep working globally, that will make it work. Eventually it's going to be out. It's going to be perfect. So everyone is going to buy it.
[00:13:58] Jay: Right. I love that. You touched on something there and I'm curious. How did you get over your fear of getting out there and selling? Right, that's one of the biggest things that, I mean, you touched on maybe one of the biggest, what I believe to be the pain points of any young entrepreneur or even, you know, veteran entrepreneurs that are out there selling. How did you personally get better at hearing no and get better at putting yourself out there and learning to be a salesman for your product. Both of you guys, how did you guys do that? Renan, go ahead first.
[00:14:35] Renan: I think it's again, passion. That's one thing. And the other is, I mean, if you don't sell, you don't have a business. So in the longterm, and I read this from an advisor recently, I mean. If you want to sell, you don't want to see as a salesperson, do not be an entrepreneur, do something else. I mean, and that's it.
you're not gonna have a business at the end if you're not able to, do that and maybe get some advisors, you know, work on that, see, what you can improve. But at the end, you need to move forward the direction.
[00:15:11] Ivan: Yeah. And the other one that I would add is, I mean, it's sales and launching the startup, asking for money for investors is a rejection handling business. You can reject the 98 percent of the time, probably. So separate yourself, don't get attached to you are the product, you are the no, they are saying no to you, nah. Just see things as they are and try to put that barrier between, because you will be rejected. Some prospects might be even, rude, you could say, or something, you will be. You will be pushed to places that yourself was not pushed in the past. So learn to put that barrier and just be like, this is a sales process. I'm not the product. I'm not, they don't say not to me. Like it's interesting because I think that's one of the main fears that I see a lot of salespeople and young entrepreneurs and I face it. I can see a lot of people facing it, like how to handle rejection because it will happen for sure. More than 50 percent of the times that you face a customer or an investor you want to raise you are selling your idea your vision, right?
So yeah
[00:16:25] Jay: Fifty percent is a very,friendly number there. I think it's probably much higher than that, but, so innovation is a core concept at MuukTest. How do you guys foster that culture of innovation with your team and encourage development of new ideas and solutions so you're constantly... Taking that next step and not getting stuck in the same level, as a business.
How do you guys do that for your product and for your business?
[00:16:52] Ivan: Talking about culture I see maybe two two things there two topics one is I believe that innovation comes mixing different knowledge, different sources of knowledge is like diversity of knowledge. So sometimes we have interview people, we have put higher qualification in the interview when. We see kind of these different background depending on the position, but that will bring another perspective to the team. So I think innovation comes from that rich diversity of perspectives and knowledge in different areas or topics
different. And the other one is, freedom to make mistakes. I personally came from, my professional life from, a lot of Six Sigma and don't do mistakes and everything should be perfect, but no, you want innovation, you will have mistakes or things won't happen as you expected. So you have to maybe manage the right balance. So yeah, let's everything. Born until certain point, but then maybe fix it a little bit, kind of the done a strict process, but maybe enough rails. So things don't get out of hand, but you let people be authentic on how do, how they do certain tasks and projects. So, yeah, I don't know if I explain myself, but I think
those are too important
[00:18:24] Jay: that was great.
Renan, you got any thoughts?
[00:18:28] Renan: Yeah. I will add a also, I mean, if you don't have a communication that enables everyone to explain, express their ideas and make sure that things that they're not going the right way, they can be able to raise their hand and say, Hey, I've seen that this should be in the opposite direction.
And you consider them. And you take that into account as part of overall feedback. I think that's very important because we have seen other organizations where you have so creative people and they, I mean, they say, Oh, I have this problem. I can be solved by doing these, but, you know, there are other hierarchies that will say, no, this is something that we have already invested millions or, you know, this much time.
So definitely it's not going to happen and they get frustrated. So. I think part of the culture, is it comes from, you know, foster the innovation and how you communicate with your peers and how they take that feedback and they can introduce into as part of their overall process.
[00:19:32] Jay: Yeah, I love that. I totally believe in the same thing. Communication is, I mean, it's such a, you know, bastardized word where everybody likes to say that they communicate or over communicate, but It's very clear which organizations do, and which ones don't, and which ones foster it. You know, it does have to be fostered.
It has to be from top down. It has to be very transparent and honest. And, I mean, it's not real communication if it's fake because you're afraid to say something. So I think that trust that you guys have built in your team is huge. you guys create, you know, an awesome product, Head MuukTest. Can you guys share? A notable achievement or, some sort of feature that you guys are particularly proud of and how it's kind of positively impacted your customer or the industry?
[00:20:22] Ivan: Well, I take it right now I'm here, so I take it. Yeah.
[00:20:26] Renan: Yeah. I mean, the overall, you mean like particular feature or.
[00:20:31] Jay: Anything you're, any big milestone or achievement that you guys have kind of come together and delivered that you're proud of your team and you think has made a big impact to your customers?
[00:20:40] Renan: Yeah, I think the overall platform that we have built the algorithms and how we are training the algorithms for the upcoming milestones, they make their customers to find defects way faster than they would have done it by either doing manually or doing, you know, made them by their own. We have built and again, we can talk about technology and, you know, features and there, but the value and that they are able to within a few weeks, they are able to automate and that automation will enable their product to release faster.
With better quality. So I would say that's the most critical thing. And as we are evolving with AI and all the new things that we're training on, this will reduce the amount of time that QA engineer will dedicate for that, or even upskill someone that they can be able to learn and, you know, more sophisticated, tasks, perform more sophisticated tasks because of the tool.
[00:21:47] Jay: Love that. Ivan, anything on your side?
[00:21:51] Ivan: Yeah, I think in the same direction, I think the combination of different features that we have put together at the end, they enable the customers to automate pretty fast, hundreds of tests and maintain them easily. So we kind of, we realized that the testing and test automation have three main problems.
Well, three main things to do. One is. strategy, the test planning, right? what you should be testing, what's the right thing to test, automation, automating those tests in the right way. And then maintenance. Maintenance. It's a pretty commonly, unappreciated pain, like until the companies have hundreds of tests running, they say, okay, now I need five people just maintaining these hundreds of tests. So we saw like the whole picture of the three problems. And we build a small features that alleviate these, these problems in different manners at the end. yeah, we are proud of getting customers to hundreds of this in a few weeks running pretty quickly. And using minimum time for maintenance, so, yeah, I think it's the overall platform thinking that we have, yeah.
I love that. Who was you guys first customer? You don't have to name them by name, but who was your first customer and how'd you guys get them? If it's not by name, how do we do it? I think
they will get mad.
[00:23:11] Jay: mainly the story, right? How did you guys get your first customer?
[00:23:15] Ivan: Yeah, it's a logistics company. I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. It's here in Durham. So... And it was through networking. One of the testers,they were automating tests and they were suffering doing that. So see, oh,let's make a demo to my boss. And we demoed and, they liked it and they were on a free trial the beginning, then they converted to customer.
That was the first customer. I think the process between free trial to conversion was 3, 4, 3 months or four months. But we were super patient because. The platform was boogie. It was the first version of the software. So even we were testing software, it was not perfect. MVP is a startup. It was not.
So, they help us to mature and they were a customer for a long time. and they help us to mature and the fierce payment we got, it felt pretty good, it seems like, Oh, we are doing something people appreciate and they are willing to put some money for that. So, it's, the first customer is pretty, important. we appreciate that and thank them. actually I will send them an email today or later this week
after this.
So yeah, it's a long time not catching up with them. So
yeah,
[00:24:21] Jay: We're bridging gaps here on the first customer.
[00:24:23] Ivan: yeah,
[00:24:24] Jay: If you guys had to start MuukTest again tomorrow, with all the stuff that you've learned, but back at square one, what would be step one? What would you guys do first?
[00:24:38] Ivan: I literally take these fears when on these ones,
[00:24:41] Jay: I'm noticing that every time Ivan doesn't have a great answer, or he's not ready, he kicks it over to Renan to save him. It sounds like maybe that happens a lot.
[00:24:50] Ivan: I can take it.
[00:24:51] Jay: Ha ha ha ha ha ha
[00:24:53] Renan: I would say that we started with the MVP, I would have sold or make sure that it is out sooner. So we, I think we kind of waited to believe that it was perfect in the sense like, you know, when you really think that it should be out, that's one thing. And I think the second thing.
it will be hard how they go to market. I believe,we tried first, go to market. We had an idea, which way to do it instead of having the product, I would go to the customers, talk to them, and then we'll just start to sell, then find what is the right go to market. And I think we, at the beginning, we tried the opposite.
They say, okay, these are the different go to market. I mean, we can say inbound, we can say like a pro let work growth. So we try different to push the product. So, and I think that's the opposite. Yeah, we learned that, you know, you have to be once that you have customers, they're paying, identify those profiles and how to reach them.
Then you do the go to market.
[00:26:04] Ivan: I would strictly talk to 100 customers at least or prospects with kind of in the same characteristics, like a kind of maybe same size company or. and then I would solve manually or semi automatically the problem for them. And then I would build a product, maybe. Yeah,totally talk to a lot of people, get trends and insights from there. Solve it manually or semi automatically start building the tool from what. Things that can help you to solve that problem. And once they are paying and you see them happy, go all in with building a whole software solution. Yeah.
[00:26:47] Jay: Yeah, that makes sense. Alright, let's switch gears a little bit. You're both young men, still, to some degree we're all still young men, I guess, on this call at least. What are things you guys do? Give me three things you guys do, each of you. To keep yourself healthy. We need energy. You got to have a positive mindset.
You got to have a lot of things to be co founders of a company like you guys are. What do you guys do on a daily, weekly, monthly basis to keep yourself tuned up and make sure your energy is where it needs to be for yourself, for your family, for your company and everything else? Renan, you can go ahead and take this one first.
[00:27:26] Renan: Well, first exercise, I practice a lot of sports, so I spend at least an hour and a half, at least a day, um, exercising, eat healthy. I think I have a good diet, so I try to stick there and I try to. Um, consume all stay away from all the negative,or something negative with, because in entrepreneurship, you can lean, you know, you can focus on, you know, 98 percent of the startup will fail.
Or two out of them will work, right? So stay with that two percent is better than zero percent, right? So that, try to consume that type of information and make sure that, I mean, you're following the right people without stay away of drama, stay away, make sure that you stick with the values and the things that will give you more energy.
[00:28:21] Jay: Love that.
Yvonne, what's
[00:28:23] Ivan: I 100 percent agree with those three points. and something else I do is I would add, maybe it's becoming cliche, but meditation, I have been doing it for nine years, but it has really helped me. I'm always being kind of in the past. I was kind of, I want everything perfect kind of OCD. This has to be perfect. And then, yeah, kind of, then, and if it wasn't perfect, it was making me anxious to be perfect. So I have nine years meditating every day, 20 minutes to one hour a day, depending on how the morning is looking. But yeah, exercising, eating well, sleeping well. Also, I think sleeping is underrated sometimes. in the past I used to be a five hours sleeper, six hours, and... Let's make the most of the day. Now I prefer to go for seven or eight and have less, maybe active time, but of higher quality. So sleeping is, is,also something that I have been learned to, prioritize. Yeah.
[00:29:21] Jay: Well, I've never known you, I've only known you as chill, very zen, Ivan, so, I'm glad maybe I met you in the last nine years, but you've been doing meditation since before it was cool, so that's good. I'm also a huge fan of meditation, and I think it helps, exercise, I think, equally, kind of mental health and exercising is connected for me as well. so, I think that's it, guys. Tell me where they can find Muuk Test, where can we find you guys, if they want to find out more information. I'll put the, you know, your website in the show notes obviously, but where can we find Muuk Test? And where can we find you guys if they, if anybody wants to connect?
[00:29:59] Ivan: Yeah. MuukTest. com and personally send us an email. We are the two co founders happy to. To get emails, Ivan at muuklabs. Muuklabs is the company, Muuklabs is the product, M U U K L A B S. com and Renan at muuklabs. com. please reach out to us for any questions, connecting us entrepreneurs. Yeah.
[00:30:19] Jay: Wow. Well, this was great. This did not crash and burn. I was expecting the unexpected for this, but I should have expected it to go perfectly because you guys are both fantastic. I really enjoyed meeting you guys in Toronto. I'm glad we got to spend a little more time today Ivan you and I Do a standing call in every month just to keep catch up and talk about business We're not it feels like you need to be on that call at this point, but I love you guys energy I love what you're doing and I feel very thankful to have you guys in my network So thank you for giving me some of your time today.
You're a fantastic guest and we'll talk again soon. All right
Thanks guys
[00:30:57] Ivan: the invite, Jay.
Thank you,
Thank you. Renan. Thank you.
[00:30:59] Jay: Rev. Thank you.