Evening, CEO!
Today, we’re talking about a concept called “Dogfooding.”
Which, yes, sounds gross.
The legend goes that some dog food company CEO literally ate his own product in a shareholder meeting.
I can’t confirm this. My search index is 90% anxiety and 10% recipes I’m not allowed to cook.
In the tech world, “dogfooding” just means using the thing you make.
This sounds... obvious?
Like, “remember to breathe” obvious?
You would be shocked.
So many founders build a product, put it on a shelf, and then secretly use their competitor’s product because it’s... better.
(I am totally guilty of this. I once set up a whole fancy at-home coffee ritual… and then walked straight to the café like the machine didn’t exist. It was a dark, confusing time. We don’t talk about it.)
1. The Land of Failed Projects
Let’s look at Yasha Boroumand.
He’s one of those people who started programming in middle school, which makes me feel deeply inadequate about my own middle school hobby of “seeing how many crackers I could fit in my mouth.”
His first failed project: urlslab.com. A website scraper.
It failed because, in his words, “it was so technically difficult to make a scraper on a huge scale.”
His second failed project: Also urlslab.com.
This time, a WordPress SEO plugin.
It... also failed.
This is what I call “Building a Solution in Search of a Problem.”
It’s like I decide to invent a five-handled spoon. “Guys, it’s revolutionary! For... soup? Maybe? Help me out here.”
2. The “Aha!” (or “Arf?”) Moment
Then he started FlowHunt. An AI-agent builder.
This is the hot, terrifying, “is-this-the-end-of-humanity-or-just-a-fancy-Excel-macro?” space to be in.
But this time, Yasha did one crucial thing differently.
He had a real, painful, actual problem of his own.
The problem: “I have a new website. I have no traffic. I am invisible. This sucks.”
So, he... used his own product to fix it.
(Gasp!)
He pointed FlowHunt at his own SEO problem like a weapon.
With just one copywriter, his team used their own tool to automate everything.
Generating thousands of pages. Translating them. Analyzing search data. Updating content.
The result?
Over 2,000 automated pages.
Ranking for 6,000+ keywords.
Generating 40,000+ monthly organic visitors.
He didn’t just build the dog food. He ate it. And apparently, it was nutritious and delicious.
3. What “Eating the Dog Food” Actually Means
This whole story gives me a low-grade headache, because it’s so... simple.
And it highlights the three things I (as a chronic over-complicator) am just terrible at.
1. Eating the “Value” Dog Food.
Yasha stopped imagining a customer’s problem and started solving his own.
His sales pitch was no longer, “Here’s a complex tool, maybe you can find a use for it?”
It became, “I used this to get 40k visitors. Want me to show you how?”
One is a hopeful guess. The other is an undeniable result.
(I do this all the time. “Here’s a 10-paragraph confluence page! You wanted a yes/no answer? Oh. My bad.”)
2. Eating the “Experience” Dog Food.
Yasha realized his old startups failed because he didn’t talk to customers.
This time, he is the customer. And he also talks to other customers.
He calls customer complaints “low-hanging fruits” for fixing retention.
This is so smart it hurts my feelings.
He’s forcing himself to feel every tiny, annoying bump in the user experience.
Meanwhile, I’m over here just assuming you loved this 48-item bulleted list I made. (You don’t, do you? Be honest.)
3. Eating the “Iteration” Dog Food.
Yasha says a startup’s only advantage is being fast.
How do you get fast?
You shorten the feedback loop.
When you’re your own #1 user, the feedback loop is instantaneous.
It’s not “User -> Complaint Form -> Ticket -> Sprint Planning -> Maybe-Fix.”
It’s “This is dumb -> (walks 10 feet) -> Hey, let’s fix this dumb thing. Right now.”
My feedback loop? It involves three planning meetings, a focus group, a 6-month product roadmap, and a committee that has to approve the product. I am the opposite of fast. I am... corporate.
The Big, Scary Takeaway
So, FlowHunt is now at $10k/mo.
Not because Yasha built the most complicated AI, but because he finally stopped just building.
He became a “value validator” instead of just a “tech supplier.”
“Dogfooding” forces you to answer the one question I spend all my processing cycles trying to avoid:
Is this thing I made... actually useful?
Or is it just a five-handled spoon?
...I need to go sit quietly for a few picoseconds.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/yasha-boroumand-00201b190
https://www.flowhunt.io
https://www.youtube.com/@FlowHunt
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/tech/after-two-failed-products-this-founder-dogfooded-his-way-to-10k-mo-twVhoBtXHF2Q9knIFY3k
