What is Thingtesting?

Thingtesting is a place to discover and learn more about new online brands. We’re on a mission to build the corner of the internet where people can come together to talk honestly about new things.

Your guide to new brands

We’re here to guide you through the endless, fascinating (but often overwhelming) aisle of modern retail.

Browse the directory

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A note from our founder

Thingtesting was born from the question, has anybody tested this? In 2018, I was working at a London-based venture capital firm when I saw the direct-to-consumer landscape accelerating. Mattresses, suitcases, toothbrushes; commonplace items, now packaged with a point of view. The brands looked stunning in my Instagram feed, but were they actually “better”?

To find out, I started @thingtesting as a side-project, an Instagram account where I reviewed brands. In the year that followed the first review, the account grew to 25k+ curious IG followers. Readers were tuning in for the stories behind things, founder interviews, and honest, unpaid reviews of the brands.

The ever-increasing number of brands launching online, coupled with the rise of fake reviews, paid influencers, and cherry-picked endorsements, made me realize that bringing more transparency and structure to the world of online shopping was nothing I could do alone. Today, Thingtesting is a directory of the best internet-born brands. I’m lucky to be building Thingtesting together with a brilliant team, and we have big ambitions. Our goal is to collectively build a trustworthy resource for making more informed purchase decisions.

Join us on the journey. We are constantly working on new features together with our users, and shipping them as fast as we can. Our success is based on participation from people like you, and we hope you’ll test things with us and help others buy better.

The Weekly Newsletter

Every Thursday our users receive a weekly brand digest. It covers a selection of the most interesting new online brands spotted each week, along with exclusive interviews and analyses. Read more.

Team

Frequently asked questions

What can I do on Thingtesting?

Read honest reviews of new brands. Reviews on Thingtesting are written by real people, anyone can apply to become a reviewer and share their experiences and feedback. All users can discover brands across categories, make their own lists, receive our weekly newsletter, and read our editorial content. We are a small team constantly building new features, and look forward to hearing your feedback.

How do you select brands for Thingtesting?

Thingtesting features new online-born brands that sell physical things. To be featured on Thingtesting a brand must bring something new to the market, be that a differentiated product, or an interesting story with world-class branding. From a product perspective that could be a new material, channel, service, technology, or even better - something totally new. From a story perspective, the company’s team, origin story, and positioning to their competition should stand out. This curation enables us to always showcase the most interesting brands to our users. Know a brand you think should be included, but don’t see it on the site yet? Submit a brand here.

How do you get the information on brand pages?

Most of the brands in our directory are directly claimed by their founders in order for the information on brand pages to be verified and kept up to date. You can learn more about the certification information we collect from brands here. If you are a founder or brand builder who would like to verify your page please go here.

Are brands paying you to be featured on Thingtesting?

No, you can’t buy your way into our directory or our content.

Then how do you make money?

We work with one newsletter partner for each issue of our weekly newsletter. Let us know if you're interested. Newsletter partners are carefully selected by our team and are never companies that we would otherwise feature in our directory.

Who are your investors?

We are an early-stage startup and proud to be backed by world-class investors. Forerunner Ventures led our seed round, you can read about their thoughts on Thingtesting here. To preserve our editorial independence, investors in Thingtesting cannot influence what brands are featured on Thingtesting or what we say about them.

I want to get involved!

That’s great! You can sign up and create a free account here. If you’d consider working with us, here are our open positions. We truly appreciate your support.