      SaaStr · 2015-02-17
      · 4124d
    

Why Jason Lemkin Invested $1M+ in RainforestQA: A SaaS Dogfooding Case Study

Jason Lemkin explains his investment in RainforestQA, a QA automation platform that replaces functional testing teams with a crowdsourced model of 50,000+ testers. He outlines three key investment criteria: superior CEO relative to stage, undermonetized unit economics with expansion potential, and sufficient lead velocity. Lemkin predicts 500% growth in 2015 based on SaaS playbook optimization across deal size, sales effectiveness, and funnel management.

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Metrics in this report

Cost Savings from QA Automation

1000000$

annual

Replacing 10 full-time QA engineers at $100k fully-burdened cost

Deal Size Expansion Target Multiple

5-10x

future projection

RainforestQA tool to solution migration

Inbound Lead Callback Rate

20%

baseline

RainforestQA before sales optimization

Tester Network Size

50000count

minimum

RainforestQA crowdsourced QA platform

YCombinator Cohort Launch to MSP Timeline

24months

actual

RainforestQA from 2012 launch to Summer 2014 MSP