Pay4Bugs is the Chinese Startup That Pays You to Squash App Bugs

Pay4Bugs is an interesting example of a start-up being inspired by a real-world problem that the founder encountered. It pays people to test apps and report bugs that they find, for the benefit of the client. With a crew of 10 people, scattered across Hong Kong and neighboring Guangzhou and Shenzhen, they recently expanded into bug-testing iOS apps.

Needless to say, in the app-centric world of instant reviews in app stores, a bug-free app can be the difference between failure and getting rafts of four- or five-star reviews.

In contrast to other firms in this arena, Pay4Bugs decided to go for a lower cost of entry and allow self registration – obviating a big outlay for clients, and the hassle of going through sales reps.

To find out more about Pay4Bugs, Penn Olson talked with Larry Salibra (pictured above), the founder and CEO of Appartisan, the company behind the app-squishing service.

1. How did your start-up come into life?

My business partner and I set up Appartisan in 2007 to develop the Attigo language learning service. While testing the Attigo platform it became apparent that we needed access to a lot more people and combinations of hardware and software – such as various versions of Windows, Mac and Linux – than we could possibly put together in-house if we were going to work the bugs out of the system.

I looked around for a testing solution better than asking friends and family, or buying more hardware, and couldn’t find anything that didn’t involve me filling in forms for call-backs from sales reps. Frustrated, we decided to build a system internally that would let us recruit internet users to help us test. That’s how Pay4Bugs came about. I personally coded the prototype version during the evenings after work before bringing in graphic design and developer talent from our Guangzhou team to help flesh out the product.

Pay4Bugs worked so well internally for testing Attigo that it was a no brainer to open it up to the public.

2. You’re proud to be able to say that the site/company is already making a profit. So, no venture capital is needed at this stage?

Yes. We’ve been profitable for two years. We developed Pay4Bugs because we had software that needed to be tested and others weren’t serving our need. They had high costs that seemed to be related to having raised huge amounts of venture capital which created high overhead, an insensitivity to product cost and value, and they hired expensive people that didn’t appear to add any value. I wanted an efficient, low-cost way to reach and organize a large number of testers, I only wanted to pay if I got results, and I wanted it on-demand without having to deal with salespeople and callbacks.

Initially, the software that needed testing was our own Attigo product, but it expanded to include products developed for clients, as well as additional Appartisan products such as our LogVu mobile log viewing app (pictured below being tested in Pay4Bugs). In fact, our experience developing our own iOS apps and the difficulty of getting people who say they would test to actually do so, was a major motivation in the development of the new iOS app testing feature in Pay4Bugs.