In which phase is your software?

An exploration of Kent Beck's 3X model (Explore, Expand, Extract) applied to software testing strategy. Each phase of a software product's lifecycle calls for a different testing investment: in Explore, the market itself is the test; in Expand, a mix of manual and automated testing supports scaling; in Extract, automation dominates to reduce costs. A triathlon metaphor illustrates why applying the wrong approach at the wrong phase causes problems.