Dogfooding
Also called Eating Your Own Dog Food
Using your own product day to day, so the team feels its rough edges as users do. From the phrase eating your own dog food.
Why it matters
Dogfooding surfaces problems no bug report captures and keeps the team honest about quality. When you cannot stand to use your own product, that is a signal worth heeding before your users tell you.
For example
A project-management startup runs its entire company on its own tool, so the team feels every rough edge before customers do.
Go deeper
Related terms
Also in Starting Up
See how founders actually handle this on Building the product, part of the Starting Up hub.
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