For Todd, the spark was ignited in a sixth-grade classroom in Marysville, Ohio. Introduced to BASIC programming, Todd was instantly captivated by the potential of software development.

"It’s almost like a superpower," Todd said. "You feel like you can do anything, bending the computer to your will within the constraints of a framework."

He pursued this passion at The Ohio State University, where he studied computer science.

Meanwhile, like many families in southeast Michigan, Justin's often vacationed in Florida beach towns. One year, cooped up indoors after the airline lost their luggage, Justin grew so bored he stumbled upon the BASIC editor of his Casio graphing calculator. He created a simple number guessing game, then asked his dad to play. 

“The act of conquering the computer and then getting the appreciation of seeing somebody use the thing that I made still echoes out to me as the main loop of everything that I do,” Justin said.

This early experimentation with programming laid the foundation for his future studies at Calvin College in Grand Rapids.

During the drive back one night, they stopped for dinner at a roadside Chili’s (because Outback Steakhouse was too expensive, as ruled by Todd, ever a steward of company finances). There, they vented about the flawed sales processes they had witnessed, where unrealistic promises set projects up for failure.

“I liken it to the scene in Jaws, where you’re comparing scars from shark battles,” Todd joked. 

That’s when they started to wonder: If we were running things, how would we fix this broken software industry?

Determined to challenge the status quo, Todd and Justin envisioned a different kind of software consultancy:

• They wanted to identify the root cause of problems—not just put on patches.
• They wanted to solve problems and transition out smoothly—not develop codependency.
• They wanted to incentivize high-quality software—not shipping features as fast as possible.
• Most importantly, they wanted an equitable space that rewarded everyone involved in the success.

For Todd and Justin, the vision became too clear to ignore: “I felt like If we didn't at least give it a shot, it would nag at me for the rest of my life,” Todd said.

And with that, they began the Test Double mission—setting out to fix the world of software, one engagement at a time.

In April 2020, Todd and Justin realized their vision of creating an equitable workplace by selling the company to an ESOP, making Test Double 100 percent employee-owned.

“The business has become more profitable, and it’s become evident that our team and not the co-founders are more and more the reason for our success,” the pair said at the time. “We’ve struggled for a while with the feeling that there is a level of inequity in the value derived from the business, so this is a natural way for us to correct that in a fair and equitable way.”

And the mission continues.

Another strategic move came in November 2023, when Test Double completed the acquisition of Pathfinder Product and added more than a dozen seasoned product management consultants to the team. That deal means Test Double now offers comprehensive end-to-end solutions in modern software creation and product management.

Behind all the growth lies the enduring magic of two kids who discovered coding—now joined by over 100 agents united in a mission to improve how the world builds software