On Dogfooding*

Over the last year I've built 17 different products. Each one was something that I thought could be useful to somebody else. And each time, no one wanted it badly enough (or at all). This, in addition to the current speed of AI, convinced me of many pivots.

Consider this: an MLB batter has at maximum .2 seconds to react to a 100mph pitch. So, to ballpark a number (hell yeah that's a pun) for anyone not in the major leagues, you have approximately 0 seconds to decide whether to swing or not. With the current trajectory of AI, that's how much time it currently feels like you have to pick a good idea.

For that reason, and to make this easier for myself, I decided to build something people want, but also build something I want. If it's something I need, it makes sense that somebody else probably needs it too.

There are a couple reasons why I think this is the only way to build a product.

People can tell the difference. You can tell certain creators are dogfooding their own creations. It's the app where those little things aren't broken. It's satisfying to use. Apple in the 2000s. Those are the products people come back to. The opposite are products that feel empty. The energy of it doesn't feel truly genuine. Visit any government website to experience this feeling.

So don't forget to dogfood. If you do, you'll more likely end up with something beautiful.

Dogfooding products are important, but we can keep going. Consider how you're chosing to spend your time right now: maybe you're traveling somewhere, with friends or family, taking a car trip. This is how you've chosen to spend your day. And as each day unfolds and extrapolates into the next, each of those days starts to reveal the record of your life as how you've defined it through your actions.

Maybe if you continue to stack those days, the aggregate isn't what you want to leave behind.

So you need to improve. Me too.

I chose not to look at improvement in the cultural sense, which is defined by weight loss, looking better, being richer. I like to look at improvement as the result of amplifying your energy.

If you continue to do this, you eventually end up with the best version of you. The benefit of this has an echo effect: If you are the best version of yourself, that gives others a glimpse of what the best version of themselves could be.

Don't deny society that. Keep dogfooding.

Expressing your creativity is one way to amplify your energy, and you can start to unlock your creativity by experiencing others' creativity.

If you look at what others have created and apply your perspective, you make it your own. There's no copying, there is only iteration. In whatever you do, make it as reflective of you as you as you possibly can.

People can more fully become themselves if they can see others doing the same. And if we can do that as a society, we're more likely to end up with something beautiful.