Dogfooding is a cheat code for startups, but unfortunately, it is impractical for most.

"Dogfooding" is when a software company uses its own product internally. It has the magical effect of creating deep user empathy throughout your team.

When your user's problems are your engineer's problems, you tend to see issues resolved quickly and optimally, no matter how small the concern.

A great example of this was GitHub's early days. GitHub didn't have to create focus groups or customer product councils; they just figured out what they were missing most from the product and built it.

If you are building an email client, it is easy to see how a company can mandate its use, but what if you write software to help shipping companies optimize their routes? Not quite as easy.

Unfortunately, this dogfooding is beyond the reach of many companies, but if you can tap it, you must.

I practice what I preach here. I chose my tax and accounting solution, Lettuce Financial, after learning that their team is a group of 1099ers who all use Lettuce themselves.

More mature options were available to me, but I've seen what happens when you align incentives: magic. 🚀🚀🚀