{"id":359,"date":"2008-02-08T01:03:47","date_gmt":"2008-02-08T09:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/dream-job-alpha-tester\/"},"modified":"2008-02-08T01:03:47","modified_gmt":"2008-02-08T09:03:47","slug":"dream-job-alpha-tester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/08\/dream-job-alpha-tester\/","title":{"rendered":"Dream job: Alpha Tester"},"content":{"rendered":"

My network of ex-Jobster<\/a> colleagues contains an unusually large number of small startups. I can count about 14 startups that have been founded or co-founded by ex-Jobsters, and many others who employ ex-Jobsters. Because of my connections at these new ventures, I’ve had the opportunity lately to do some alpha and beta testing, and have been having a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

I’ve always enjoyed taking the time to give detailed feedback when asked. I contributed to my former employers this way, and often send bug reports for the software\/sites I use, but what’s really fun is engaging with a new, hungry company that is trying to get it right.<\/p>\n

It started with Trumba<\/a> about three years ago, when I was a beta user (unfortunately, I soured on Trumba later<\/a>). Of course, I helped my husband improve Feedwhip<\/a>, and later Picnik<\/a>. More recently, I’ve worked with startups like AirSet<\/a>, Stuffopolis<\/a>, SimpleSpark<\/a>, Urbanspoon<\/a>, RescueTime<\/a>, Mergelab<\/a>, and I Want Sandy<\/a> to identify bugs and make suggestions.<\/p>\n

I should point out that this help is unpaid, and contributed as a user (rather than employee or consultant). I do it because I really enjoy trying out new things in my neverending quest to get everything to work just the way I want. It’s invigorating for me to interact with these entrepreneurs, see the passion and commitment they have for their products, and dream together about the best way to solve a problem.<\/p>\n

The more highly I think of a product, the more likely I am to send in lots of bugs and feedback. I’m cheering for these baby companies to succeed, and so contribute what I can to help. If only alpha tester were a paying job, I’d do it full time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My network of ex-Jobster colleagues contains an unusually large number of small startups. I can count about 14 startups that have been founded or co-founded by ex-Jobsters, and many others who employ ex-Jobsters. Because of my connections at these new ventures, I’ve had the opportunity lately to do some alpha and beta testing, and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/359\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mynameiskate.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}