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.

Worth your time

The Lean Startup theleanstartup.com · book Dogfooding is part of the build-measure-learn method Eric Ries lays out for building under uncertainty. Open theleanstartup.com →

Related terms

Go deeper

See how founders actually handle this on Building the product, part of the Starting Up hub.

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