# Eat your own SaaS dog food

Published on 2023-08-30 · Updated on 2026-10-07 · 1 minute to read

The phrase "eat your own dog food" or "dogfooding" is often used in the startup space and insinuates that you should be an active user of the product you're selling in order to have better insights on how to improve and grow it.

The phrase "eat your own dog food" or "dogfooding" is often used in the startup world and insinuates that you should be an active user of the product you're building or selling in order to have better insights on how to improve and grow it.

I always find it interesting to see how some startups use their own product daily, even if it's a bit meta sometimes.

## Here are a few dogfooding examples

The [Lemlist](https://www.lemlist.com/) team used their own tool to grow by sending personalized cold emails, creating a healthy feedback loop:

      
        ![Source: Starter Story](/rails/active_storage/blobs/proxy/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6MjgzLCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--571987fec32415222680741e53cf04aa93e27c83/lemlist-example.gif)

      

    
        Source: [Starter Story](https://www.starterstory.com/cold-email-platform)
    

[Ahrefs](https://ahrefs.com/) team members like [Patrick Stox](https://twitter.com/patrickstox) are savvy SEOs, and also power-users of the tool. thanks to this dynamic, the product team can get can get highly qualified feedback.

  
    > I'm generally considered one of the best Technical SEOs around and I've been working on [@ahrefs](https://x.com/ahrefs?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) Site Audit for almost 4 years now.   
>   
> It's great, and we keep making it better.  
>   
> Here are my 10 favorite, little known use cases. 🧵
> 
> — Patrick Stox (@patrickstox) [August 24, 2023](https://x.com/patrickstox/status/1694777381435707788?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

  
The [Notion](https://www.notion.so/product) team uses their own tool to organize their whole company, and they shared how they do it publicly.

      
        ![Source: The Notion Blog](https://softwaregrowth.io/rails/active_storage/representations/proxy/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6Mjg1LCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--7051308f37a11ffe38f675b59126b647368761a0/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJmb3JtYXQiOiJ3ZWJwIiwicmVzaXplX3RvX2xpbWl0IjpbMTYwMCwxNjAwXSwic2F2ZXIiOnsicXVhbGl0eSI6ODAsInN0cmlwIjp0cnVlfX0sInB1ciI6InZhcmlhdGlvbiJ9fQ==--854df99f91f864f19447a914724edfe2747828fe/how-notion-uses-notion.png)

      

    
        Source: [The Notion Blog](https://www.notion.so/blog/how-notion-uses-notion)
    

Even if it looks super meta, the [Figma](https://figma.com) team uses their own tool for UI/UX work.

> What's it like designing Figma in Figma? [pic.twitter.com/daziRcohlj](https://t.co/daziRcohlj)
> 
> — luis. (@disco_lu) [June 10, 2022](https://twitter.com/disco_lu/status/1535181320468430848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)

 On the [Fomo](https://fomo.com/) website, we can see pop ups from their own tool that show social proof.

      
        ![image](https://softwaregrowth.io/rails/active_storage/representations/proxy/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6Mjg2LCJwdXIiOiJibG9iX2lkIn19--aa1327ef9abcef843d70c73e61bdc98f3bd7c435/eyJfcmFpbHMiOnsiZGF0YSI6eyJmb3JtYXQiOiJ3ZWJwIiwicmVzaXplX3RvX2xpbWl0IjpbMTYwMCwxNjAwXSwic2F2ZXIiOnsicXVhbGl0eSI6ODAsInN0cmlwIjp0cnVlfX0sInB1ciI6InZhcmlhdGlvbiJ9fQ==--854df99f91f864f19447a914724edfe2747828fe/fomo.png)

      

    
        fomo.png
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— Alexandru Golovatenco, Software Growth