What Is Dogfooding?

In product development, there's no better way to understand your own software than to use it yourself. That’s the idea behind dogfooding, a practice where teams actively use their own tools to identify issues, gather feedback, and validate their product in real-world scenarios.

Dogfooding: Meaning and Definition

Dogfooding, short for “eating your own dog food,” is the practice of using your own company’s software or products internally before releasing them to customers.

The term originated in the tech industry and has become shorthand for demonstrating confidence in your product, validating real-world use cases, and catching bugs or usability issues early. In software, it often means teams rely on their own app for day-to-day operations, whether that’s internal tools, dashboards, or workflows.

Software dogfooding is both a development strategy and a cultural mindset. It reflects a commitment to product quality, transparency, and empathy with users.

Why Dogfooding Matters in Tech

For technology companies, dogfooding isn’t just symbolic, it’s practical. It helps teams:

• Discover bugs or UX flaws before customers do
  
  
• Understand user needs through hands-on use
  
  
• Improve product reliability and workflows
  
  
• Strengthen product–team alignment
  
  
• Promote a product-first culture

Dogfooding in tech is especially common among product-led growth (PLG) companies, where internal feedback loops directly influence roadmap priorities.

Dogfooding vs Beta Testing

While both practices involve real use of a product, they differ in who’s involved:

Dogfooding typically happens earlier in the development cycle and is often ongoing, especially for tools built to support internal operations.

How Noloco Practices Dogfooding

We run our own business on Noloco, because if it doesn’t work for us, it shouldn’t ship to you.

At Noloco, dogfooding is central to how we build and improve our no-code platform. Our team uses Noloco to manage internal workflows, customer data, onboarding, and even our product roadmap, often building tools and apps for our own use cases before they’re available publicly.

This hands-on experience helps us:

• Improve usability for non-technical users
  
  
• Spot limitations or edge cases early
  
  
• Prioritize the features and fixes that matter most
  
  
• Ensure performance, security, and flexibility at scale

By using Noloco the way our customers do, we stay closely aligned with their needs and continue building a product we believe in.

Explore more foundational product and tech terms in our glossary.

‍