#012 • 18 Mar 2025

Contents of this Newsletter

🦾

Decoding Feature Requests

⏰ : 5 min

📖

Recent Blogs

⏰ : 8 min

🕵🏼

Espionage Unpacked

⏰ : 3 min

📆

AI Event Spotlight

⏰ : 4 min

meme of the week

MAIN STORY

Can Feature Requests Build or Break Your Startup?

Every startup reaches a tipping point: early clients and users come with feature requests, each one seemingly critical. Saying yes to everything is like being pulled in five directions at once; you stretch yourself thin without making real progress. And saying no is like refusing to move while the market speeds ahead. The real challenge is separating high-value requests from noise.

At Quash, an AI-powered QA automation platform, we’re actively navigating feature requests from recent demos, like visual testing, regression testing, API testing and more. Managing these effectively is key to staying aligned with customer needs, but it’s not about collecting them—it’s about cracking the code on what to build. Here’s how we’re doing it.

Steps That Make or Break

The wrong feature can set you back months. The right one can define your product’s future. The challenge lies in knowing the difference.

It’s a trap startups fall into daily. A big-name client waves a contract, pushing for a shiny new feature, and the temptation is to drop everything and build it. After all, a paying customer is a paying customer, right? Wrong. Building everything clients ask for leads to a patchwork product with no clear vision.

For Quash, the pressure hit after demos spiked interest. Developers loved our promise to eliminate manual mobile testing with full AI automation, but the requests rolled in fast: Figma integration, regression suites, real device testing. Do we build it all to lock them in, or risk losing them? It’s a make-or-break call every early-stage company faces.

Insights That Turn Chaos Into Clarity

We don’t guess. We built the Impact Nexus—a razor-sharp grid to plot requests and cut through chaos. Two axes:

Strategic Fit (X): Roadmap and mission alignment (1-10).
Market Pull (Y): Need depth and demand scale (1-10).

Quadrants call the shots: Build Now (top-right), Investigate (top-left), Queue Up (bottom-right), Pass (bottom-left).

On-premise deployment (7,8) and regression testing (9,8) landed top-right after demos. On-premise deployment unlocked enterprise deals, regression slashed QA time. Figma (4,6)? Investigate. Real device testing (8,4)? Queue it.

The Impact Nexus Map

Build Now: On-Prem (7,8), Regression (9,8)
Investigate: Figma (4,6)
Queue Up: Real Device (8,4)
Pass: UI Themes (3,2)
Above 6 on both? Build it. Below 4 on either? Skip it.

We’ve said it before: insights are king. The Nexus keeps us focused on building what scales, not what’s loud.

Building Features That Matter

Execution’s ruthless. Visual testing prototypes hit clients fast; regression’s on deck, killing manual QA drag. Every move scales broad, no exceptions. Post-launch, clients feel the value—no bloat, just results. Startups don’t win by shipping more. They win by shipping right.

Key Takeaways

Map feedback to spot trends, not one-offs.
Plot impact over noise.
Build what scales and ignore the rest.

For Quash, requests fuel us, not derail us. Founders, steal this.

Check out our Recent Blogs

How to Effectively Test PDF Documents: Tools and Techniques for QA Teams

Discover the best practices, tools, and techniques for testing PDF documents...

Read article

Infrastructure as Code: From Basics to Advanced Patterns

Infrastructure as Code automates resource provisioning and management through code-defined environments...

Read article

Breaking News

Corporate Espionage In The HR Tech Space

Rippling is suing Deel for allegedly stealing trade secrets. Both companies are competitors in the HR and payroll tech space, but they operate with slightly different focuses. Rippling manages HR, IT, and finance in one platform, covering payroll, benefits, and device management. And Deel focuses on global hiring and payroll, streamlining compliance and payments for international teams.

Rippling claims Deel poached employees who had access to proprietary data, using insider knowledge to gain a competitive edge. Deel, on the other hand, denies any wrongdoing, framing this as an aggressive legal play rather than a legitimate claim. But what makes this lawsuit particularly fascinating is Slack’s role as a “witness.” Internal communications, casual messages, off-the-record thoughts could now become the evidence that determines the outcome.

litquidity

@litcapital

“So basically there’s a company called Rippling and another called Deel. They both make HR software (boring af I know but this story is insane). Rippling is suing Deel because of top secret corporate espionage, where they found a mole in the company planted by Deel. To snuff him… https://x.com/i/web/status/1901819150923669920

7:43 AM • Mar 18, 2025

Retweets

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Likes

Read 7 replies

This isn’t just a legal dispute; it’s a case that could redefine how aggressively startups protect their intellectual property in an era where talent moves fast, and so does information. For startups, there’s a bigger takeaway: In high-growth, high-stakes industries, where differentiation is thin, information security isn’t just about servers and NDAs. It’s about people, internal culture, and how knowledge flows within (and beyond) an organization.

Is this the beginning of more legal battles in competitive tech verticals? Possibly.

Join Us at the GenAI Collective Bengaluru Kickoff!

We’re excited to share that the GenAI Collective Bengaluru Kickoff is happening on March 19 at Amadeus Software Labs! This is the first-ever meetup in Bengaluru for one of the largest global AI communities—bringing together AI founders, developers, and operators to dive into building and scaling AI-driven SaaS.

If you’re working in AI, testing, or automation, this is the place to be. Expect insightful discussions, founder spotlights, and plenty of networking opportunities. Register here to secure your spot, the space is limited!

At Quash, we’re always looking to engage with the AI community, and this is just the beginning. Keep an eye out for more events where we’ll be teaming up with the GenAI Collective to drive meaningful conversations on AI-powered testing and automation.

‘One Wrong Feature = Months Lost’ + Meme of the Week