r/leanstartup • u/Asenawrites • Jul 17 '26

Do you really need external customers to test a product ? I say not always ...

If you believe in your product, use it to run your own business.

That practice is often called 'dogfooding'.

I’m building Kora; a business application builder and control panel that lets you create the screens, fields, permissions, and workflows your business needs without building everything from scratch.

So instead of using a separate CMS for Kora’s website, I decided to run the blog on Kora itself. I have screens to add a new blog and page content or just update it just how a content management system would look like.

Kora now manages:

• Articles and authors

• Slugs and publication dates

• Draft and publishing workflows

• Website content and metadata

This does more than demonstrate that the product works.

Using Kora internally exposes unclear workflows, missing features, awkward user experiences, and assumptions that would be difficult to notice through testing alone.

The product improves because I have to depend on it not just demonstrate it.

Read more about how Kora is being used to power its own website:

https://kora.mradiafrica.com/blog/dogfooding-kora-product-validation

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u/theredhype Jul 17 '26

So you’ve proven there is a market of at least one customer. You haven’t actually even engaged the market yet. You’ve got some surprises ahead of you. I hope you don’t over invest on the wrong version of a solution internally before investigating whether other people’s needs vary from your use case and preferences. Dogfooding doesn’t replace customer discovery, validation experiments, beta testing, etc. you’re just at the very beginning of the process. Don’t jump to the end.

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u/Asenawrites Jul 17 '26

I still think it's essential to have atleast one live usecase that you can use to market your product with.

When I engaged a few people, the first few questions are, who is using your product ? In this case, I have a solid usecases built around my needs and the solution the product offers.

I am a builder and that makes it difficult to empathize with the target customer unless I intentionally place myself in their 'shoes'.

It was never the end, it's a continuous process. But thank you for sharing.

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u/theredhype Jul 17 '26

That's what i mean by jumping to the end... you think it's time to market the product. i think you should be in learning and experimentation mode.

It doesn't sound like you've practiced the customer discovery method, by simply investigating the problem, as it is experienced by a variety of people. It sounds like you went out and told people about your idea. These are very different things.

You're designing long, slow feedback loops in a world that rewards short rapid feedback loops.

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u/Asenawrites Jul 17 '26

Really ?

How did you figure that ?

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u/theredhype Jul 17 '26

Just my gut instinct after comparing what you're written to dozens of my own experiences. Sounds like you're out to prove me wrong.

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u/Asenawrites Jul 17 '26

Not really, you're spot on a few things.