Came across this interesting term today and did a quick google search on what it means.
“Eat your own dog food” is a colloquial expression that describes a company using its own products or services.
The origin of this term is debatable and attributed to two different instances.
One is that the president of Kal Kan Pet Food was said to eat a can of his dog food at annual shareholders’ meetings to demonstrate his trust in the quality of pet food they were making 🙏
A more reasonable origin story is attributed to an internal email of Microsoft in 1988, titled “Eating our own Dog food”, urging its employees to develop software using Microsoft operating systems and tools.
I think the concept of “eating your own dog food” is very interesting and is applicable for many categories beyond technology.
For example if you are building a fast fashion brand, to see if young employees in your org are sporting your brand (out of their own will and without mandating) or still flocking to competition brands- is a good metric to know if you are really making trendy clothes.
Holds true for most categories- personal care, health food, investment platforms, gadgets, anything.
For #founders and brand builders, It’s a useful exercise to check if we are eating our own dog food or not?
Because if our products / services are not appealing to our own employees, it’s very unlikely that they will appeal to #consumers 😅
#startups #brands
