There’s a simple test most founders ignore.
Use your own product.
Not for QA.
Not for a launch photo.
Not for a demo.
Use it like a real customer.
And pay attention to your reaction.
If, when you use it - or taste it, in our case - you’re genuinely delighted… that’s a very good sign.
If you’re neutral, slightly embarrassed, or thinking “it’s fine for now”… that’s a warning.
As a founder, you should be slightly obsessed with your own product.
Not in a delusional way.
In a way where you pause and think,
“This is actually good.”
Where you’d confidently hand it to a friend without a disclaimer.
Where you’d pay for it if you weren’t the one selling it.
Where you feel proud when someone experiences it for the first time.
That internal reaction matters more than most metrics early on.
Because growth amplifies what’s already there.
If the product is average, marketing just spreads average faster.
If the product is weak, ads just accelerate churn.
If the product is forgettable, distribution becomes a treadmill.
You can compensate for a lot of things.
You can improve messaging.
You can optimize funnels.
You can tweak pricing.
You can fix onboarding.
But if the product itself doesn’t make you light up a little when you use it, you’re building on sand.
And here’s the uncomfortable part:
Many founders secretly know their product isn’t great yet.
They avoid using it.
They focus on branding instead.
They obsess over growth tactics.
They hide behind “we’ll improve it later.”
Later rarely comes.
Because if you don’t hold the line on product quality early, everything else becomes a patch.
When you truly love what you’ve built, something shifts.
You talk about it differently.
You defend it differently.
You refine it obsessively.
You’re willing to fight for it.
And customers feel that.
Yes - positioning matters. Distribution matters. Timing matters.
But none of it saves a weak core.
If you want a simple founder litmus test, here it is:
When you use your own product, do you feel impressed?
If the answer is yes, you’re probably onto something.
If the answer is “it’s okay,” you don’t have a marketing problem.
You have a product problem.
And that’s the only problem worth solving first.