Dogfooding is simple in theory: use your own product the way your customers do. In practice, it only works when the feedback is honest, organized, and close enough to real customer behavior.
In our earlier post about who does dogfooding well and why it matters, we covered the broader practice. This article is about our own version: how we use Gleap to build Gleap.
Why dogfooding made sense for us
Gleap started as a product for developers and product teams who needed better bug reports. We had lived that pain ourselves while running a software agency: vague reports, missing browser details, screenshots sent separately, and too much back-and-forth before anyone could reproduce the issue.
That made dogfooding a natural fit. Our team uses the same kinds of workflows our customers use:
- Reporting product bugs
- Testing new releases
- Collecting feature requests
- Improving onboarding
- Updating help content
- Reviewing support conversations
Dogfooding is strongest when your team resembles your target users. If your employees would never naturally use the product, internal testing can still find bugs, but it may not teach you much about customer value.
When we use dogfooding
We use dogfooding in three moments.
First, before releases. When a feature is close to shipping, we use it internally and report anything that feels confusing, broken, or unfinished.
Second, during new feature development. Internal use helps us catch rough edges before customers see them, especially in flows like onboarding, widget customization, and feedback collection.
Third, continuously. Gleap runs inside Gleap, so support, product, and engineering can experience the product from the inside while still relying on customer feedback for external validation.
How we collect internal bugs
When someone on the team finds a bug, we report it through in-app bug reporting instead of dropping a vague note into chat.
That keeps the report useful. The developer gets the description, screenshot, browser or device details, technical context, and reproduction clues in one place. The conversation can continue inside the issue instead of being split across messages and meetings.
The discipline matters. Dogfooding fails when internal feedback becomes a stream of casual opinions. It works when the feedback is structured enough for someone to act on it.
How dogfooding changed our product
Dogfooding has shaped several parts of Gleap.
It pushed us to make onboarding faster. If our own team struggled to explain or complete a setup step, that was a clear sign customers would struggle too.
It made documentation more important. Every unclear help article created a support moment, so we invested more in a useful knowledge base.
It helped us simplify the dashboard. We learned that Gleap should support product and support workflows without trying to become a full project management system.
It also made feature requests easier to discuss. Instead of letting ideas disappear into meeting notes, we use a public roadmap and feature request workflow to collect, group, and prioritize demand.
What dogfooding cannot tell you
Dogfooding is valuable, but it has limits.
Your team knows too much. You understand the product model, the edge cases, and the intended behavior. Customers do not have that context. Internal users may forgive rough edges that external users would not tolerate, or they may overvalue features because they are close to the roadmap.
That is why dogfooding should sit beside customer interviews, support conversations, usage data, and customer feedback surveys. Internal feedback helps you polish the product. Customer feedback tells you whether the product is solving the right problem.
Our biggest takeaway
Dogfooding only works when the feedback has a home.
If internal testers send issues wherever it is convenient, the team will miss patterns and forget follow-ups. If reports are captured consistently, dogfooding becomes a practical operating habit: bugs are easier to reproduce, feature ideas are easier to compare, and product decisions stay closer to real use.
For us, using Gleap to build Gleap is not a slogan. It is a way to keep ourselves honest while we improve the product.