Dogfooding: The Habit That Builds Better Products
Using your own product might be the single most powerful habit a product team can build.
Sounds obvious, but how often is everyone on your team actually using your product?
At OneSignal, we’ve been leaning hard into dogfooding — using our own product exactly as our customers do, with their goals in mind.
It’s not just about testing for bugs. It’s about feeling what our users feel, understanding their goals, and experiencing the product as they do.
Why We Dogfood
When we dogfood, we:
- ✨ Build empathy by walking through real customer goals and workflows
- 💪 Strengthen confidence in our product’s quality and reliability
- 🔍 Spot the small UX or performance issues that only show up in real use
- 🧩 Deepen understanding of how all the pieces fit together
- 🛠️ Create a culture of continuous improvement — if you see something broken, you fix it
This simple habit helps us build trust in our product and stay close to the details that matter.
How It Started
We started running dogfooding sessions during our company onsites, and they quickly became one of the most valuable sessions of the week.
They’re equal parts testing and reflection. We walk through real user journeys, capture friction points, and discuss how to make them better.
Now, our EPD teams run regular friction logging sessions throughout the quarter using FigJam to capture screenshots and notes, which are triaged into Asana for prioritization.
It’s lightweight, visual, and fast, and it’s surfaced dozens of improvements that have made the experience smoother for everyone.
How It’s Growing
Dogfooding has expanded beyond product and engineering. It’s now a shared ritual across EPD and other cross-functional teams including Support, Marketing, and Solutions Engineering.
Marketing uses OneSignal for our own campaigns and promotions. Product & Engineering uses OneSignal for many of our own transactional emails.
I use it personally to send my newsletter. Some teammates use OneSignal for their own apps and side projects.
It’s helped everyone understand the product from different angles and built empathy across disciplines.
Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement
The biggest outcome isn’t the bug fixes — it’s the mindset. Dogfooding reinforces a culture where everyone feels ownership of the product experience.
It reminds us that great products are built when the people behind them truly understand what it’s like to be a customer.
Quality becomes a shared responsibility. Improvement becomes part of the routine.
Because if you don’t love using your own product, how can you expect your customers to?
We’re hiring across Product & Engineering, come join us! onesignal.com/careers
