Just realized our Toronto demo crashed because we didn't test with a real bank login

We were pitching our new budgeting app, SpendFlow, to a VC firm in their Bay Street office. The live demo froze when we tried to connect a sample bank account. Turns out, we only tested with our own dummy data, not a real financial institution's actual login flow. We had to pivot fast and just show the pre-loaded dashboard. Anyone else have a demo disaster story from using fake data?

3 comments

3 Comments

jamesf416d ago

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. We started keeping a burner account with a real bank just for demos after our third crash. Load it with like fifty bucks and use it only for testing the live connection. Saved our butts more than once when the API acted up. The dummy data never catches the weird login screens some banks use.

leo_fisher6d ago

Disagree with you @jamesf41, that sounds like a security risk waiting to happen. A real account, even with little money, is still a real target. I'd rather use a dedicated sandbox from the bank or a proper test environment.

tara7936d ago

Yeah, that's the kind of hack you only learn after things blow up in a demo. Totally feel that pain.