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On Getting PromotedPromotions are not a reward for what you’ve done in the past. It’s a prediction of what you’re capable of doing in the future. So always work outside your job description. This is how I moved up the ladder (vertically and horizontally) every 2 years.Always be replaceable. Otherwise you will never get an internal promotion, because there is no one to do your old job. This is why I was denied a promotion by the best manager I ever had.Want a higher position on a different team? You need to be working with that other team on a common project now to build trust. I worked on a common project with that team, and when an opening came up, the hiring manager said to me “I like how you work.”Dress for the next job you want to get, in line with your company’s culture. Mimic your management. Appearances do matter. After I started wearing blazers I noticed a difference.It’s all about the money. Always! Understand how management view and protect their budget and let that be a guiding principle in your conversations. That’s what management essentially mean when they ask to present a “Business case” for your idea.On Your Relationship With Your BossOne of your main responsibilities is to make your boss look good to their boss. Without a$$-licking or compromising your integrity or dignity. Always attend to their requests first.You know you’ve reached a milestone in your relationship when your boss tells you “Can you cover for me?”It’s not your boss’ job to tell you exactly what to do. S/he will appreciate that you are figuring things out on your own. Use them as a compass, not a GPS.Before you conclude your boss is a micromanager, observe if others feel the same. It could be you. If you do have a micromanaging boss, leave. They will never let you grow and will impact your performance. I worked with a team who described their boss as a “nano manager”. It was a very difficult team to work with, until that manager was fired.Don’t wait for your performance review. If you have something important to discuss, bring it up now. When I asked my manager during my review for more money, his response was “You should have asked me earlier”.On Your Relationship With Your ColleaguesThey are not your friends. If you must make friends, make them from another department you don’t work with. When conflicts inevitable rise, I was conflicted between talking straight or protecting my friendship.Empathy goes a long way. When asking something from them, always ask yourself “What’s in it for them?” and negotiate accordingly.It’s a give-and-take relationship. Help them when you can and count your favours, so they will reciprocate for you in the future. Sound too cold? What do you care? They’re not your friends remember?If they are not pulling their weight, make sure you’ve done everything you can do directly with the colleague before escalating to management. Escalations always sour relationships. Use it as a last resort.Above all be likeable. You can get away with mistakes and asking for more favours than they owe. Buy them the occasional coffee for people in other teams. It’s a good investment.Don’t mess with HR. Don’t mess with finance. They are more powerful than you think.On CommunicationGet to the point. Some folks like to paint an elaborate picture first. Most listeners, especially senior management, don’t have the time or patience.Keep your emails short. No ones going to read anything beyond 5–7 sentences. Have more to say? Call a meeting.Emails and Skype messages can be ignored. But not a face-to-face conversation. If you have something important to say, or you’re being ignored, leave the laptop behind and talk to the person.Everyone has a different communication style. Some prefer email, some prefer personal conversations. Observe and adapt.The higher you want to go, the more important your speaking skills are. Join toastmasters if you need to.On MeetingsAlways create and agenda in the invite. Because most people don’t, and you’ll get a higher acceptance rateOprah Winfrey starts every meeting with three questions "What is our intention for this meeting? What's important? What matters?" If you’re calling a meeting, make sure you stick to the agenda.If a meeting is more than 20 minutes, half the people aren’t going to be listening. Keep it short. Attendees will love you for it.Don’t bring your laptop to meetings unless you are presenting something. You’ll be seen as the only one who’s paying attention. Once I started doing this, I noticed the presenter was only looking at me instead of others. Helps with your likability.Unless it’s a meeting your manager calls, your default reaction to attending meetings should be “No”. Unless you honestly see the value you will bring to that meeting. Your time is better spent working towards activities that lead to your promotion.On LeadershipYou know you’re a good leader when others say you are so. It’s my personal empathetic description. Just like you know you’re listening when the other person feels they are being heard.Don’t expect or depend on your boss to be a great leader. Good leaders are rare. Focus on being a great leader yourself.Leaders speak first and last. They trust their team to do most of the talking in the middle.Reschedule your one-on-ones if you have to. But never cancel them.Identify someone who you feel is a great leader in your organization. It’s most likely not going to be your boss. Use them as a mentor and make them feel you value their opinion. They’ll appreciate it, and you’ll learn a lot.Always always credit your team on a job well done to your management. It doesn’t mean you don’t do the work. It means you know how to delegate effectively and work in a team.On Work EthicsEverything is possible, until someone says “No” or “We don’t have the money”. Be persistent when trying to accomplish something.Do the responsibilities in your job description well so you can score high in your performance review. Do it efficiently so that you have time to spare to do other activities. This helps with getting promotions.If you don’t get a response, follow up! Using “I’m waiting for their response” will only go so far as an excuse to not get something done.Have the guts to say “It was my fault”. Even a half-decent manager would appreciate the honesty.Most people are quick to give a million ways why something cannot be done. Be the one that figures out how things can be done. Then go back to point #1 on work ethics.Never ever ever speak ill of anyone or any team. Reserve your office vocabulary for compliments and facts. Take your frustration out at the gym or in your pillow.If you want to work longer hours without risking being perceived as inefficient, come to work early instead of leaving late.If you want to raise an issue with another team, come to the table with facts. Not opinions. A director once told me “If you don’t have the numbers to back up your claim, this is going to be a very short conversation.”On Job SearchingLoyalty is for suckers. Economic downturn, corporate restructuring, bad business, new CEOs, your age, all are reasons you can lose your job for reasons beyond your control, regardless of your tenure in the company.Think twice before changing jobs. Make sure you’re not leaving a good company because of a bad manager.Most job openings are already earmarked for a specific candidate the hiring manager has in mind. This is why external and internal network is important.A senior director once told me, “If you apply for a job at our internal job board, there is a 90% chance you’re not going to get the job.” Your job application does not stop after you hit “Submit”. You need to go after the job by contacting the hiring manager directly. That’s how you beat the competition and stand any chance of beating the earmarked candidateYou never know when your last day will be. Always keep your resumé up-to-date.Click here to download a high-converting resumé template and watch the short how-to video I created on how you can keep it up to date.

This question seems to be a bit broad to me. However, I will attempt to answer your question based on my understanding of it.I believe you are confused between Scripting Testing and Record & Replay Testing.Scripting Testing a.k.a Code-Based TestingUnlike Record & Replay testing, a tester who is assigned the task of writing test scripts using Selenium framework needs to have a fair amount of coding expertise with Python/PHP/Perl/Ruby/other programming languages.Depending on the functionalities that need to be tested, the tester should also have an understanding of the different modules available in Selenium for the corresponding programming language. Script based testing is always a viable option for any kind of project (whether it is in the development phase or maintenance phase). Since Selenium is a widely used test automation framework, it is likely that members in the development team would also have a good amount of knowledge about it. In such a scenario, they can co-work with the testers and come up with effective test cases and test scripts that have long-term benefits.Unlike Record & replay tests, modification of scripts (that are written using Selenium) is possible; though the turn-around time depends on the coding expertise of the script developer/tester. It is also suited for performing stress testing & regression testing which makes it a ‘more scalable approach’ for automation testing.To summarize,Scripting using Selenium is preferred by testers who have a ‘development mindset’ and possess knowledge about frameworks like Selenium.It is suited for creating test suites/test cases in a more robust manner.Test scripts using Selenium framework can be used to achieve the best ‘code coverage metrics’ i.e. the test code can be used to test even the boundary scenarios along with the normal test scenarios.Suited for performing end-to-end testing.Record & Replay Testing a.k.a Codeless TestingRecord & Replay can be the first step to learn about test automation since the tester does not require any scripting/coding expertise. It is a good learning tool for someone who comes from the Manual testing background and wants to get a foothold in the world of ‘Automation Testing’. However, the recorded scripts can be large in size as the number of use cases increase and this would impact the execution speed of these scripts. It is an ideal approach for a product where the changes in the UI are far-fetched since it would not have much impact on the recorded scripts. To summarize,Record & Replay testing is suited for applications/websites where testing schedules are tight.It is ideal for test teams who have a background of Manual testing and want to venture into Automation Testing.It can be used by members who are outside of the development/test teams.Challenges with Record & Replay testingEvery technique has a downside, here are the ones with respect to Record and Replay Testing:Problem 1 – Too much recordingWhen you navigate on any website, you tend to perform many actions and some of these actions might be unintentional. The issue with Record & Replay tools is that it would record ‘too much information’ and majority part of that information can be ‘noise’ i.e. not required to be a part of the test script. For example, below is a snippet of the recordingMove the mouse to location 100,200 (relative X, Y coordinates)Click on ‘Userid’ text boxType the user-nameClick on ‘Password’ text boxType the PasswordWait for 5 secondsClick on ‘Submit’ buttonThe scenario looks perfectly fine, but a delay of 5 seconds could be misleading. There is a possibility that tester might have entered the wrong password and was trying to delete the same or there could be some other reason.Problem 2 – Too less recordingThe problem with Record & replay tests is that sometimes the recording would be too less and such a short recording would not transcribe into a ‘valid test script’. In such a scenario, the recorded test script has to be re-recorded which may take more time & a couple of re-tries.There is also a possibility that you record the wrong thing and the time taken to do the recording would be exponential depending on the complexity of the use case. For example, while recording a use case, you commit a mistake at the last step. Since you cannot record in parts, you need to re-record the whole scenario.Problem 3 – Modification of test cases & execution of test cases in a loopConsider that you have a test scenario where you have to test the authenticity of a user. This would involve permutations & combinations of test cases based on ‘usernames & passwords’ in the respective fields on your web-app/website. If you plan to perform the testing using ‘Record & Replay testing’, you have to perform the same task for every set of username & password. You cannot modify the ‘recorded test script’ to enter the details about each user in the script.Since the recorded test script might not be understandable (i.e. it could be HexCode that can only be decoded by the Record & Replay tool), you would have a new script for each scenario; even though the change in the test scenario might be minimalistic in nature.These are some of the major downsides of Record & Replay testing, but it can be an ideal starting point for someone who is interested in Automation Testing. Plus, it can be executed by anyone belonging to your organization, from your DevOps team to your Marketing one.

I just got reject by 500 Startups (company), Techsters and Y Combinator. And wrote e medium post about it. Here it goes.Lessons learned from a startup rejected by 500 Startups, Techstars and YCombinatorThe ups and downs, excitement and frustration, of being part of the selection process of the world’s top startup acceleration programs — and being rejected by all of them.By reading this article’s title you probably think my business is just bad — and it’s fine I won’t judge you — but please read the full story before reaching a conclusion.Our little ventureAfter accumulating twelve years of experience working on the software industry, I decided to venture myself on the startup world, completely on my own. I already had some entrepreneurship background running a startup backed by a large tech enterprise, but that’s a whole different story.I’m talking about betting big on my own idea, with my own resources. Turning down a few amazing job offers to work on something I believe, that could be both a huge business opportunity and generate a small fortune.Saasmetrics is a subscription analytics solution. We help subscription businesses around the world to grow their recurring revenue and retain customers by providing business metrics and insights.Nowadays you can buy almost any kind of good, product or service, on a subscription basis. Think of Google Apps, Spotify, Netflix and all the things you pay recurrently. That’s not just a trend, it’s a new way to do business, and we call it the subscription economy.After a few months working on the company we’ve accumulated over 500 businesses in 44 countries using the product, a couple of dozen paying customers, and growing at a 30% monthly rate.I know that can seem irrelevant, but it’s real progress. Real users, real money. Real interest and usage of a real product. That’s the thing you want to do as an early stage startup. And we did.Accelerate or bootstrap, that is the questionAs founders, we’ve prepared ourselves to live for a while without a pay check. Meaning we don’t need to worry about money for basic things like rent, food, etc — by the way, that’s what all startups founders should do.As any other startup out there, we wanted to grow big and fast. Our goal was to acquire as many users as possible, and then convert them into paying customers. Get some traction. And that’s what we did in the beginning.We developed a very crappy first version of the product, lacking tons of functionality, and delivering what we thought was our core value. People started to signup and try it out, some even converted into paying customers. But guess what? The prodct was just awful. It was full of bugs, providing a terrible user experience, and delivering barely 10% the value we expected.We decided it was time to stop trying to sell sh*t, and build a good product. We went talk to people and the advice was the same: build something people want and love. That was our new goal. A small. number. of. customers. loving. our. product. Instead of tons of people just signing up for it.Now things were different. Support tickets dropped significantly. We were not shipping new features as fast as before, but they were much better, polished and bug free. People started to like the product better, use it more, and give us more space to interact with them. We learned a lot.Users started to talk about us on the internet, refer Saasmetrics to their peers. We felt people were really starting to like what we were doing.It was time to accelerate again.The crusade of raising moneyWe decided it was time to raise some initial capital. Let me spoil the end of this article again: we failed. Miserably.When it comes to raising angel/seed rounds, there are only so many options you can pursue. You can either find a prominent entrepreneur with a lot of money willing to risk some capital with you, or you’ll end up applying to a accelerator/incubator.In the very beginning we actually tried everything, including talking to venture capital funds. But we learned a lesson quickly: VCs won’t invest in ideas, they’ll invest in traction. They give you money so you can grow your existing business, not create a business from scratch. And the worst thing is: they won’t tell you “no”. And the reason is simple: they don’t want to loose the investment opportunity in case you succeed in the future, so they keep a minimal relationship with you, neither saying yes or no. And that’s much worst than hearing “no”.Side note: we received two investment offers along the way, and refused both. It was good money, but from people we didn’t really admired nor knew. It might have been a mistake, but we don’t regret it.After a few weeks talking to potential investors, we decided to apply for an acceleration program. From the beginning we wanted to create a truly global business, and the US was certainly the right place to be. No matter if we wanted to be in the Silicon Valley or not, over 40% of our traffic and users were coming from the US, and the fact we were doing the whole thing in english and billing in US dollars were determinant.I knew about pretty much all the good programs out there, but I spend a few days researching on every acceleration program in the world with a good reputation and a decent investment offer.Needless to say, we decided to apply for 500 Startups, Techstars and YCombinator. Not all at once. Each one has a different story, and I’ll share them with you.TechstarsI’ve been involved with the startup ecossystem for a while now. I always loved the sense of giving first, and therefore I interacted with Techstars multiple times.I’ve been both a mentor and judge in numerous Startup Weekends along the way, and also organised and facilitated a Startup Next (Techstars pre-acceleration program). Some of it was before Up Global was acquired by Techstars, but I always admired their team and mission to foster local ecosystems.In a very fortunate occasion, I realized I was a speaker on the same event this Techstars Managing Director was also speaking. A few weeks later we decided to apply for Techstars.We had some very healthy and productive conversations, and I really thought we stood a chance of getting in. We interviewed multiple times with different Managing Directors and mentors, and were really excited about it. Specially because we were applying to Boston, one of the best Techsters programs, with a great SaaS ecosystem, and mentors like David Skok.A few weeks later I received the following email:Hi Leo,By now, you should have heard from Techstars Central with an invitation to another interview. I am sorry you did not make the final cut to the Techstars Boston Spring 2016 class. It was just too competitive. But we liked your team so much, that we’ve recommended you to other programs. We wish you the very best and if it doesn’t work out this time, please reapply to our program.We’ve reviewed ~500 applications and your team made it to the top 20. That’s huge for such an early stage company like yours. We loved the team and the space, so you stand a real chance of making to another awesome program such as Boulder, Austin or Seattle, for example. My recommendation is that you try your best during this upcoming interview.Wishing you the very best next week!What?! They selected 14 companies and we made it to the top 20? Damm. That was close.Long story short, we applied for Techstars New York with Boston’s recommendation, met some other amazing folks, and were rejected again. 2x rejected by Techstars. Similar feedback: no traction, too early stage.500 StartupsJoining 500 Startups was what I really wanted, to be honest. I had a few close friends that went through the program and they’re building great companies. The fact that I saw people like me doing very well, made me want to be part of it too.I also like their mantra of growth & distribution. By the way that’s what we really need at the moment.After some research and conversations, I decide to ask this close friend to introduce me to this 500 Startups Venture Partner. He did, and it was in person. I couldn’t be happier. They were great people, doing awesome stuff, and I was super excited with the chance of being part of that.We applied to the San Francisco program (they have another one in Mountain View), and waited anxiously for a response. A couple of weeks later, we got an invitation for interview! Yes! We were super happy and excited about it.We did our best to prepare ourselves for the interview, polished our demo, did mock interviews with each other, and talked to people that had been through it before.The day came and the interview was super ackward. No video, voice only. Me and my co-founder on skype, about 5 people on the other side. A lot of questions asked in about 25 minutes, and I couldn’t really understand everything they were saying.A couple of weeks later, I recieve the following email:Hey Leo, hope you’re doing well.Just wanted to drop you a line and let you know that the 500 team was really impressed with you and your team at Saasmetrics, but we decided that it’s not a good fit for our accelerator program.With early traction, the main reasoning was our concern around differentiation in the space. If you create any significant changes, please do let us know. Again, I can’t tell you how awesome I think you are, and we wish you the best with your company. I hope we can hang out again some time.Have a great day.Ok, so the feedback was different now. They realized we had some early traction, but the problem was we were not so different from other solutions out there.Of course I’m bias to say, but I didn’t agree with that. Maybe I didn’t make my self clear. Maybe they were right. Anyway, that was new information we need to process and incorporate to our strategy.Curious fact: early this year I visited San Francisco to participate the SaaStr Annual conference and had the chance to met this other 500 Startups Partner. He kindly invited me to visit their office and talked with me for 15 minutes. The feedback he gave me was different: you’re simply too early. We need to see more traciton.Humm. Ok, I’ve heard that before.YCombinatorWhile talking to friends and mentors about Techstars and 500 Startups, I kept hearing the very same question over and over again “Why don’t you apply for YCombinator?”My answer was always the same: 1) I don’t really think we stand a chance; 2) I had great connections with both 500 and TS, I don’t want to be a simple form submission among thousands YC receive.But after being rejected 2 (or 3) times already, I could see no harm in applying for YC after all. I honestly thought we were no YC material and didn’t really stood a chance of getting in.I applied and expected nothing out of it.Until I recieve the following email:Thank you for applying to Y Combinator. Your application looks promising and we’d like to meet you in person. Please click here to learn how YC interviews work and to schedule an interview slot. Interview slots are booked quickly. If you have scheduling restrictions, please move fast.We encourage you to read What Happens at YC because it answers most of the questions applicants have had about YC in the past.Instructions for reimbursing your travel expenses can be viewed here. Please submit your reimbursement by May 31.If you want to learn more about YC or our interviews, feel free to ask founders of YC-funded startups. They’re usually happy to answer any questions, although bear in mind that most of them are busy trying to run their companies.See you in California!— YCAt this point our excitement level went through the roof!If you’re not familiar with YC, here are some facts to help you understand how good they are. Since 2005 they’ve funded over 850 companies including AirBnB, DropBox, Stripe, Mixpanel, Twitch TV, and many other very successful tech startups.They’re also probably the most well connected people in Silicon Valley, and host weekly dinners with founders and incredible folks like Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and President Obama.I can say I never prepared better for something in my life. We had roughly 2 weeks to get ready, and I did everything I could.We listed over 100 questions on a document, and wrote a succinct and direct answer to each one of them. We did mock interviews with each other dozens of times, polishing the responses over and over agian.The questions covered pretty much everything they could ask us, including things about our company purpose, why we decided to start working on it, our business model, competitors, revenue and metrics, legal, equity, incorporation, customers, things we’ve learned, etc.We also reached to as many people we could to do mock interviews with us. From past YC founders to VCs, asking them not to be easy and ask the hardest questions they could think of.We read pretty much everything available on the internet about YC and it’s interviews. Testimonials from people that were both accepted and rejected, videos from YC office hours and it’s partners.The day came and there was I in California for the 5th time in less 4 months.We arrived at the YC campus 4 hours before the time our interview was schedule to happen. We explored the place a little bit, and then reached out to other founders, and even asked a few of them to do more mock interviews with us. People from all over the world, hoping for a chance to join the program.Here’s how the selection process works:You apply for YC online;They receive over 15,000 aplications and select about 500 for an interview in person;You participate in a 10 minute (that looked like 30 seconds to me) interview with 3 partners. When your time comes you’re invited by this guy to enter a room, and before you expect he knocks at the door. Time’s up. The partners spend another 5 minutes discussing wether they’ll fund you or not;After the interview 3 things can happen: 1) They ask you to stay a little longer to do another interview and ask you more questions. 2) You receive an email with the feedback why you were rejected. 3) You receive a call to announce you were selected to join the program.I waited outside the room for another 5 minutes and this guy tells me I can go home, and should “stay tunned for tonight”.Needless to say, after leaving the YC campus I spent pretty much the rest of the day staring at my phone. I tried to relax but it was impossible.About 3 hours later I receive the following email:Hi Leo and Paulo,I’m sorry to say that we decided not to fund Saasmetrics. This was a difficult decision because you have an impressive team and are meeting a real need for subscriptions services. However, our concern is that your business is still very early, and it is not yet clear if you will be able to profitably acquire a large customer base. That said, we could easily be wrong, and would be happy to hear from you again in the future.Thanks for coming and spending the day with us and we wish you the best of luck.Too early. Ok. I’m starting to think that might be true.At this point I’m incredible disappointed with my self. Thinking what I could have done better or different.The whole YC process was extremely valuable. Although the feedback was pretty much the same, they interviewing approach was much different.Instead of trying to find the flaws on our business like investors usually do, these guys were trying to look at the big picture, and identify if we were really working on something people wanted. Over 80% of their questions were around our customers and things we’ve learned interacting with them.And that’s not surprising, YC have some incredibly smart people. The guy who interviewed us and sent the rejection email was an early employee at Google and created Gmail.Now what?Remember when we decided not to rush things and stop trying to sell sh*t? Was it a good decision? Totally.I’ve heard the same advice a bunch of times “it’s better to make something a few users love, than something a lot of users like”. But at the end of the day, everyone wants to see traction.Maybe if we kept pushing our crappy product out of the door and accelerated on sales, we could have over a hundred paying customers at this moment, and maybe joined one of the acceleration programs.But what would have been the consequences? Part of these customers would probably hate us, another part would certainly have churned.We simply don’t want to be the company that pushes bad products to customers just for the sake of selling and getting traction.It’s also interesting to notice the fact that I know companies that joined these programs without making a single dollar on revenue. Maybe they have a stellar team. Maybe their idea is just better than mine. Go figure.The worst thing about raising capital and applying to accelerators is: it takes a lot of time and energy. And that’s the thing we as founders have the less. All the time we spend talking to investors or filling out application forms are driving us away from the things we really should be doing: writing code and talking to users.After being rejected over and over again, here’s what we’re doing next:STOP. RUSHING. THINGS. FOR GOOD.We’re done applying for accelerators, or raising money. At least for now.We’ll do things at our own pace. Build the product our customers want. Grow our customer base on a consistent and solid manner. We don’t want to grow at all costs, and we need no one else but ourselves to do that.Here are my main takeaways from this whole process:Do we need an investor/accelerator to succeed? No.Do we need anyone’s permission to build our business? No.Would $120k have come in handy? Yes.Will we keep hustling no matter what? Yes.Can a competitor execute better/faster than us because they’ve raised capital? Definitely.Are we going to apply again or raise capital in the future? Probably.Did we tried to rush things and applied too early? HELL YES.I still admire all the three programs we applied to, and would like very much to have joined any of them. I still think we’ll need VC money some day. Nothing really changed that perspective.The one thing I’ve learned here is: do things at your own pace. Don’t be discouraged because you’re not raising $10M from Sequoia or Andreessen-Horowitz. Don’t get caught by Tech Crunch headlines.The only ones you need to impress are your customers. They’re willing to give you money repeatedly, without asking for equity, and give you all the feedback you need to improve your product and grow your business.