As a software developer in both Mexico and the United States, Ivan Barajas Vargas saw a problem with the productivity of testing applications. The tools he and other developers like his co-founder Renan Ugalde Amezcua had were not making things easier.
“We saw the pains in our jobs,” Vargas said. “So we decided to start working on this product.”
The product is MuukTest. Raleigh-based MuukTest uses AI to keep developers focused on building products, not testing them. The platform tests applications within minutes instead of days.
Vargas became involved with entrepreneurship after earning his MBA at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School in 2014. He tested several startup ideas, but it was MuukTest that really gained traction—enough to gain a coveted spot in the MassChallenge startup accelerator in Boston from June to October.
Forbes has ranked MassChallenge as one of the top five startup accelerators based on successful exits. The accelerator has good connections with mentors on both the technical and business sides, Vargas said.
“They are helping us to find product-market fit faster,” Vargas said.
MuukTest’s name has significance in Vargas’s Mexican culture. The word “muuk” hails from the Mayans, a group of indigenous people in Mexico and Central America, and it fits the startup’s mission to help software developers.
“We wanted to use one word related to our culture,” Vargas said. “So we used this Mayan word that means ’empowerment’ or ‘giving the power to people.’ We are empowering software developers and testers to be more productive.”
Vargas said he and Amezcua wrote the first line of MuukTest code last July. Officially incorporating this year, MuukTest now has seven beta customers and has released three versions of its software. Vargas said the plan is to start converting beta customers into paid customers during September and then begin adding new customers with a subscription pricing model. MuukTest currently serves several custom software development companies.
“We’re enabling some part of the tech community to become more productive,” Vargas said, “because right now they are struggling with catching up with the automation.”
For instance, Vargas said one person using the automation script Selenium can automate three or four test cases per day. With MuukTest, that number is closer to 40—even topping than the fabled “10x rule” for being more than 10 times better.
“What they could do in one week now,” says Vargas, “they can do in one day with us.”
