Ministry of Testing Returns to Profit and What it Means

We did it!

Ministry of Testing made a profit this year.

With our commitment to building in public, here's a thread explaining why this is such a big deal, and how that money is going to be used.

There are still two weeks of the financial year remaining, but it looks like we will make about ￡70,000 in profit. This may not seem a lot, but it's huge for MoT. It's confirmation that we've been able to navigate the pandemic.

It's a reward for how hard we've been working, how we've innovated, adapted to these challenging times, and done it in a way that's benefited the community and the business.

It's often overlooked that we are indeed a business. A business focused on community. A community backed by a business.

The two sides of that see-saw have to exist in harmony, be balanced, if one goes, it will no longer work.

Two years ago that balance was lost, when the business lost 70% of its revenue overnight (no physical events). In 2020 we lost ￡36,142 and in 2021 we lost ￡27,235. Those were big hits for a bootstrapped company with a circa six month runway.

But because we've always worked hard to maintain that community /\ business balance, you were there to support us. Embraced our rapid innovation and pivots, no more so than the first #TestBash Home. A TestBash I will never forget.

And you've continued to support us throughout these difficult times as we've improved Pro with 99-Min-Workshops, new content and more online events. Our online events are still unmatched for their personable nature, you create that.

Right now, we've more Pro members than ever!

Your support to the business side of MoT, which has led to this small profit will allow us to continue innovating new initiatives for the community but it is allowing me to address some business issues I've wanted to for a long time.

Align and improve pay at MoT.

Let me share the finer details.

Every Boss at MoT does something different, when you remove our Boss titles we have an event manager, community manager, developer, operations manager, finance manager, marketing manager, learning advisor.Who have different market competitive rates

Therefore there has been differences in pay between bosses circa ￡10,000 p/a.

Not only that, we had a gender pay gap at MoT, men were paid more, a lot more.

This has never sat well with me, but financially I've never been in a position to fully address it. I was able to make a few small increases last year, but nothing of scale.

Until now.

Given this small profit and improved projections, I've introduced equal pay to all bosses at MoT, and a clear structure for how future pay increases will work.

I'm not going to share the actual salaries as some folk don't want this public.

To be completely transparent. Some men are still paid more. This is because they've been moved to the next step of the structure. One due to being in a leadership position for 1+ years, the other because their pay was the highest but I still wanted them to get a pay rise for reasons below.

The difference now though, ￡5000, is that this is known, and why they are paid more (the new structure, and wanting everyone to have an increase) is available to everyone. Over the coming years we will be hiring and expanding in all directions, so the other bosses will more up the structure when this happens.

But every member of the team has had a *minimum* increase of ￡5000. Why ￡5000?

It's as high as I could go to equal pay, but also not put MoT at financial risk.

It's also a figure that will help the team with NI increases, energy crisis, inflation and other costs getting higher

Every boss at MoT is equal. Without any of the bosses the balance of community /\ business is lost, therefore pay, potential pay, and opportunities should be transparent. It wasn't, that was wrong. But it is now.

I'm so pleased I've been able to make this happen. So pleased.

There are many stresses in the world at the moment, and I'm hoping these changes, which were made possible by all of you, will remove some financial pressures for them. Freeing some capacity to process everything else the world is throwing at us.

I've made it as explicitly clear as I possibly can to the team, that these increases, very significant for some, doesn't alter my expectations of them. It's just, deserved, I'd give more if I could. I'm not expecting more or harder work, nothing like that. Reward and comfort.

Finally I want to share some personal news off the back of this. I've been working at MoT for six years now, and BossBoss (CEO) for four.

It's been an incredible journey, and one that is going to continue with me as a co-owner of MoT.

Rosie and Graham provided me with share options many years back which have now vested, but due to my own financial issues I haven't been able to purchase them.

However, due to this small profit, MoT will be gifting the shares to me, and I'll soon own 25% (5% more to vest) of MoT.

I love this company and community, it's been a huge part of my life.

To be a co-owner is a dream of mine, and I can't thank Rosie, Graham, Team MoT and the community enough for making this happen.

Thank you.

I'm not perfect, this model and changes are not perfect, but it's better and I will continue to make it better.