My wife and I used to make our own dogfood.
One of our dogs was forever plagued with ear infections, and it was cheaper to make dogfood that avoided the allergens than it was to buy antihistamines.
We did all the research and math to make sure the food was nutritionally sufficient, and got the process of making and portioning the food down to about two hours.
The dogs loved it. (We made enough for both of our dogs.)
It was premium. In fact, one time I took a bite of it, and it was edible! If things got really bad, we could survive on it for a few days probably.
That's not the kind of dogfooding I'm talking about, though.
If you're a software developer, you probably have heard the term dogfooding.
If not, no worries, I'll explain.
A software team developing an app will use it in their work. In doing so, they'll find bugs and work out usability issues.
In other words, they “eat their own dogfood” and work with their own garbage, and are motivated to fix it.
It's a good practice to apply to other kinds of products, regardless of whether it uses code or not.
We dogfood our own stuff anyway.
If we're working up something for ourselves, then it's all dogfooding, in essence.
But we call it something different, like:
- “getting it to work”
- “working out the kinks”
- “tailoring it to how we work”
I've long needed more efficiency for myself in capturing ideas and transforming them to compelling content.
So, I'm putting together a set of Obsidian templates for myself to decrease the friction in getting from raw material to articles.
I'm going this route rather than buying something because whatever I buy is going to be tailored to how the creator sees things, and I'm going to need to tailor it anyway.
At least I have a product for a template dev challenge
I mentioned that Jamie Northrup has a 7-day template challenge going on in his Skool community.
So now, I can officially call “working out the kinks” … dogfooding.
After a few hours, this is what I have:
The lines between the notes (the dots) are the two-way links that will eventually make the content creation process easier.
I wish I had a before picture, but:
- There are a lot more dots on the graph. More content to link.
- There are a lot more links. More ways to mix and match for new content.
- I figured out the colors for the different nodes (they're different kinds of content) in about two minutes. (Pretty, isn't it?)
I was a little surprised things had progressed this far after only a few hours of working with my new templates and new system.
This bodes well not just for myself (who needs this desperately!) but also for other creators who might buy it from me.
I still have a ways to go. I'll still need to put together:
- how to use the templates
- how to install them (easily)
- how to tailor Obsidian to make best use out of them
- package the whole thing
But I feel a lot better about how things are going after dogfooding today!
Would this be useful to you?
Stay in the know! Subscribe to Solid Cash Tips through this link and I'll make sure you get a nice introductory price on my templates when they come out!
Or simply comment “templates” and I'll reach out!
Header photo by Ayla Verschueren on Unsplash