In an effort to become more open with our community on plans for the future, we have shared our goals for 2022 publicly to keep us accountable and get your thoughts and how we might reach them.
Our goals are derived from vision statements we made last year, one of which is to get MoT back to financial growth. Some context, like lots of companies, the pandemic has had quite an impact on us. Over the past two years we have lost money:
- 2019-20 - £1.1m income and lost £20k
- 2020-21 - £650k income and lost £8k
At first glance this might seem bad, but from our perspective it’s incredibly good. Although we lost 80% of our revenue when the pandemic hit, our performance for the past two years could have been much worse. However, it’s not sustainable. We’re a bootstrapped company and rely on income to grow and create new opportunities for the community. So to improve our future, we’ve set two goals:
- Get Pro subscriptions up to 3000+
- Run multiple online events
Pro subscriptions to 3000+
Ministry of Testing Pro subscriptions have become our primary source of income. At the start of the pandemic in 2020 we had 800 Pro subscriptions, and now at 2022 we have just over 1900 Pro subscriptions. To help us grow again we want to get that number over 3000.
Why 3000 Pro subscriptions?
What the pandemic showed us is that we cannot be dependent on physical events as our main source of income. Whilst they are great fun to host, as a business they aren’t sustainable. The profit we make compared to the work we put in is tight, and there are only so many events we can run (even outside of a pandemic). The revenue of 3000 Pro subscriptions will cover all the running costs of Ministry of Testing. Giving us freedom to explore new ideas and events in the future.
How will we achieve this?
We understand that for an individual or team to go Pro, we need to provide value. Which is why we will be exploring activities such as:
- Improving our site to make it easier to use and more engaging
- Creating new features to help promote
- Improving our communication to the community on the value of being a Pro member
Our hope is that as we improve these items and more, we will see an increase in subscriptions.
Run multiple online events
Whilst we will be running in-person events during the year such as: TestBash World, TestBash UK and TestBashX. We will also be running themed online events throughout the year. These will be one day events that you can access via a Pro subscription or with a purchased ticket.
Why run more online events?
Throughout the past two years the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive for our online events. They have increased the accessibility of speaking and attending TestBash events on an international level, resulting in some new faces and voices at a range of our events. By also increasing the number of events, we have the ability to focus on specific topics to really dig into key concepts and ideas around testing.
How will you do this?
We will be running multiple themed online events across the year including the topics that were voted for by the community:
- Leadership
- Mobile
- Security
- Careers
- Core skills
We will also be upgrading TestBash Home to TestBash World and expanding TestBash UK to create unique events that take advantage of both online and in-person spaces.
Have your say
We share these goals, to hold us accountable to the plans we’ve set for ourselves. But we also want to know what you think about goals for the year? What do you think of our goals? Are they sensible? What suggestions do you have for achieving them?
If you’d like to share your thoughts, reply below and if you want to support us further, consider going Pro if you haven’t already to take advantage of a wealth of content, events and activities. As well as supporting us to create a stronger community. Thank you to all our pro members.