The Warm Up: The Day We Became Our Own Test Dummies: The Great 8-Hour Dry Run Disaster (That Actually Worked)

The Day We Became Our Own Test Dummies: The Great 8-Hour Dry Run Disaster (That Actually Worked)

There comes a time in every startup’s lifecycle when you have to face the ultimate boss: your own business model. For us, that moment was the dreaded, yet slightly thrilling, "end-to-end dry run of the customer journey."

The setting? A randomly hired, air-conditioned meeting room on a blistering Sunday. Why? Because the UK has been trapped in a never-ending June and July heatwave, and frankly, our brains were melting.

The physical state of the co-directors? Fragile. Extremely fragile. The night before—or more accurately, the early hours of that very morning—Heather and Corinne were glued to the screen watching England vs. Norway go to a grueling extra time in the World Cup. Delirious, operating on three hours of sleep, and chanting "It’s coming home... right?!" (Famous last words. We’ll get back to you on that).

But by 10:00 AM, it was time to lock in. The goal of the session was simple but terrifying: simulate every single millisecond of a customer’s experience. From a potential fan discovering a dream fixture on our site, to quoting, communication flows, securing the booking, payment processing, pre-trip info, all the way to the customer actually embarking on the journey.

Now, how do you test a complex, multi-layered travel ecosystem when your website hasn't launched yet? By using crash test dummies, of course. And by that, we mean ourselves. Look, any excuse for the two of us to head to a new city and watch a football match, we will take it with both hands.

For our guinea pig trip, we chose an absolute banger: Glasgow City vs. Partick Thistle at Petershill Park. We’ve been deep in meetings and emails with Glasgow City over the last couple of months and are completely obsessed with their entire vibe, setup, and historic position in women’s football. (Massive side-note: a huge shout-out to the incredible Foudys link-up for their new shirt. Yes, we will 100% be purchasing it for our actual trip there in September. Consider that an essential business expense).

What followed was an intense, 8-hour marathon session that pushed every single one of our remaining brain cells to the absolute limit.

We roleplayed everything. Corinne played the role of "Demanding Customer Who Wants to Know the Exact Eco-Credentials of the Train Journey" and Heather played "Stressed Travel Agent Digging Through PTS Trust Account Frameworks." We clicked every link. We sent ourselves automated emails to see if they sounded human. We tweaked spreadsheets. We tested payment gateways. We debated over comma placements in confirmation emails.

If anyone had walked into that meeting room, they would have seen two dehydrated women surrounded by cold coffee cups, empty pringles cans, and whiteboard scribbles that looked like a conspiracy theorist’s basement.

But we did it.

We poked, prodded, and stress-tested every single gear in the Football TravelHER machine to ensure that when we go live next month (August 3rd! Weeks, not months now—which is wild to say out loud!), the process for our very first customers is as smooth as a silk pass from a midfield maestro.

As we packed up our laptops and stepped back out into the humid evening air, the relief was palpable. The dreaded dry run is officially complete. We came, we saw, we roleplayed, and you know what? We actually know what we’re doing. The system works, the packages are high-quality, and we are officially confident and ready to roll.

Watch out, August. TravelHER is ready for kickoff. ⚽✈️