

The Surprising Benefits of Dogfooding - alanh
http://blog.blogic.com/the-surprising-benefits-of-dogfooding

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sixtofour
> OrangeSlyce, my last startup, developed a marketplace where small business
> owners could browse and hire local graphic design students for freelance
> projects. I did not regularly use OrangeSlyce, ... Had these problems been
> spotted earlier, maybe OrangeSlyce would have ended up a different and more
> successful service.

> From this comes our first surprising lesson: Dogfooding may be the ultimate
> form of customer feedback. Surveys, GetSatisfaction/Uservoice, usage
> statistics – all fine ways to peer into people's heads. But using your own
> product is like mind-melding with a motivated user. It’s instant feedback.

Dogfooding is usually seen as evidence that someone believes in their product.
But as this article shows, the more practical part of dogfooding is that the
product has benefited from some of the best possible feedback. It's better
stewardship.

