In Silicon Valley, they call it ‘dogfooding’—using your own product in real business operations. For me, it’s not just a validation strategy. It’s the only way to build software that actually solves problems.
The Problem with Building for ‘Users’
Most software gets built for abstract personas:
- “Sarah, the busy marketing manager”
- “David, the growing startup founder”
- “Enterprise customers who need scalability”
But I’ve never met Sarah or David. I have met myself, though. And I have real problems that need solving.
Real Problems, Real Solutions
Agentic Bookkeeper: Born from Tax Season Panic
I sat down to organize expenses for my engineering consultancy. Receipts were scattered across email, photos, the proverbial shoebox, and random folders.
That’s when I decided to build an AI-enabled Bookkeeper.
A year later, SoloStaff Bookkeeper processed every business invoice and receipt through my actual consulting practice:
- >95% receipt categorization accuracy using vision AI
- CRA-compliant expense categories
- <2MB SQLite database (vs cloud solutions requiring constant internet)
- Zero subscription fees
Invoice Application: Solving My Own Billing Problems
My invoicing workflow was embarrassing:
- Copy last month’s Word document
- Find/replace client names and amounts
- Export to PDF
- Email manually
- Track payments in a spreadsheet
Professional? Hardly.
So I built the SoloStaff Invoice Application. Not for a mythical user base—for my own P.Eng. consulting practice.
Features I actually need:
- Sequential invoice numbering
- Client database with billing details
- PDF generation with my branding
- Payment tracking
- Tax-compliant reporting
- Multi-currency support
Features I don’t need:
- Team collaboration
- Integration with 47 different platforms
- AI-powered insights
The Validation Advantage
When you dogfood your own products, validation becomes automatic:
Bad UX hurts you personally. If the interface is clunky, you feel it every time you use it.
Missing features block your actual work. You can’t ship an MVP that doesn’t solve your core problem.
Performance issues affect your business. If it’s slow, you’ll optimize it because you have to use it daily.
Bugs become urgent. Nothing motivates bug fixes like your own broken workflow.
The Authenticity Factor
When I write about these tools, I’m not making marketing claims. I’m sharing real results from my engineering consultancy:
- “Processed 200+ receipts with 95% accuracy”
- “Reduced monthly software costs by $247”
- “Zero downtime over 6 months”
These aren’t projected benefits or customer testimonials. They’re measurements from actual business use.
Building the SoloStaff Family
Every SoloStaff tool starts with a problem I personally face:
- Non-Profit Emailer: Managing communications for community organizations I’m involved with
- Family Registry: Keeping track of extended family contacts across provinces and states
- Sales Flow Application: Managing my consulting pipeline without CRM bloat
I’m not building for a market. I’m building for myself, then finding others with the same problems.
The Local-First Philosophy
Dogfooding also shaped the technical architecture. Working from home and remotely with spotty internet taught me:
- Cloud software fails when you need it most
- Subscription models create anxiety during lean months
- Data ownership matters for professional liability
- Simple tools beat complex platforms
That’s why every SoloStaff tool is local-first: desktop applications with SQLite databases, one-time purchases, and offline functionality.
Limitations and Honesty
Dogfooding has constraints:
Limited scope: I can only solve problems I actually have.
Bias toward my workflow: What works for a solo engineering consultant might not work for other businesses.
Scale assumptions: My solutions optimize for 1 user, not 1,000.
But for the solopreneur market, these constraints are features, not bugs.
The Bottom Line
Every feature request gets filtered through one question: “Would I personally use this?”
If the answer is no, it doesn’t get built.
If the answer is yes, it gets built right—because I’ll have to live with it.
This approach doesn’t work for every product or market. But for solo entrepreneur tools, dogfooding ensures you build solutions instead of software.