How to build a QA strategy from scratch

Quality isn’t a department. It’s not a process you tack on at the end. It’s a mindset. A commitment.

If you think QA is just about catching bugs, you’re already playing a losing game. Great companies don’t just fix problems - they prevent them. Apple didn’t become Apple by testing at the last minute. Tesla doesn’t let customers do their bug testing. Netflix doesn’t wait for the app to crash before fixing it.

Bad QA is expensive. IBM found that fixing a bug after release costs 100 times more than catching it early. Think about that. A tiny mistake could be a million-dollar problem.

So how do you build a QA strategy that works? Here’s how.

1. Define quality before you chase it

You can’t hit a target if you don’t know what it looks like.

Before you write a single test case, answer this question: What does quality mean for your product?

• If you're building an e-commerce platform, downtime kills sales.
• If you're running a bank, security is everything.
• If you make a fitness app, users expect a seamless experience.

Don’t try to be great at everything - focus on what matters most.

Amazon knows that a 100-millisecond delay in page load time costs them 1% in revenue. That’s why performance testing is a priority for them. If they tested like a normal company, they wouldn’t be Amazon.

2. Test what matters first

Not everything deserves the same level of scrutiny. The best QA teams don’t test everything - they test the right things.

Where should you focus?

• Core functionality: If this breaks, your product is useless.
• High-risk areas: Payments, logins, security, scalability
• Real-world scenarios: Test how actual users behave, not just how engineers think they will.

Everything else? Prioritize based on risk.

When Instagram first launched, their team didn’t test on every Android phone - they focused on the most common models. They knew 80% of their users were on a handful of devices. That’s smart testing.

3. Automate the boring stuff, think about the rest

Manual testing is too slow for a modern company. Some tests should run every single day - without a human pressing a button. That’s where automation comes in.

• Automate repetitive tests: Logins, signups, common workflows.
• Use CI/CD pipelines so bad code never makes it to production.
• Don’t over-automate - humans still need to think, explore, break things.

Google runs over 150 million automated tests a day. That’s why Google Search rarely breaks. They don’t leave quality to chance.

But here’s the mistake most companies make: They automate everything and assume it’s enough. It’s not. Test automation is great for catching known issues. But the biggest failures? They come from the unknowns. That’s why exploratory testing - where testers actively try to break the system - is just as important.

4. Make QA everyone’s job

If your QA team is the only one thinking about quality, you’re in trouble.

• Engineers should write tests before writing code.
• Designers should test usability before shipping features.
• Product managers should think about edge cases from Day 1.

The best teams bake quality into the entire development process.

At Facebook, they have a saying: "Nothing at Facebook is someone else's problem." QA isn’t a department. It’s a shared responsibility.

5. Move fast without breaking trust

Speed is important. But shipping a broken product is worse than shipping nothing at all.

• Run tests in parallel to avoid bottlenecks.
• Release small updates often instead of giant risky launches.
• Always, always test in real environments before going live.

In 2014, Facebook rolled out a buggy iOS update that crashed on launch. Millions of users were locked out. The cause? A last-minute change that skipped testing. They learned the hard way.

If you move fast without a QA strategy, you’re not innovating - you’re gambling. And eventually, you’ll lose.

6. Never stop improving

QA isn’t a one-time thing. It’s a cycle. Learn. Fix. Improve. Repeat.

• Track user complaints. If people report the same issue twice, you failed.
• Analyze bugs. Find patterns. Fix problems at the root.
• Update your QA strategy as your product evolves.

Netflix constantly tests thousands of versions of their app. They don’t just fix bugs - they experiment, iterate, and improve every day. That’s why their service rarely goes down.

The cost of bad QA

If you think QA is expensive, try failure.

Here are real-world examples of what happens when companies don’t take testing seriously:

• Knight Capital (2012): A trading firm lost $440 million in 45 minutes due to a single untested software update.
• Toyota (2010): A software glitch caused unintended acceleration, leading to recalls of 8 million cars and $2 billion in losses.
• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 (2016): Poor battery testing led to devices catching fire. Samsung had to recall 2.5 million units, costing $17 billion.

The takeaway? QA isn’t optional. It’s the difference between companies that survive - and companies that don’t.

Final thoughts: The real reason QA matters

Bad QA costs money. Bad QA costs reputation. Bad QA kills businesses.

If you don’t invest in quality today, you’ll pay for it tomorrow. And when you finally realize it, it might be too late.

Tesla tests every car hundreds of times before it leaves the factory. Apple puts iPhones through thousands of hours of testing before launch. Amazon runs millions of tests to ensure its platform never slows down.

That’s why they win.

So ask yourself: Do you want to ship great products? Or do you want to spend your time apologizing for bad ones?

Don't let bad quality cost you customers. DeviQA delivers expert QA solutions to keep your product flawless.