By Thomas Reisenbichler, VP, Delivery, Reliability & Security at Dynatrace
In the fast-paced world of software development, the pressure to ship quickly is relentless. New features are the heartbeat of innovation and competitive edge, driving companies to push releases faster than ever before. But in this race to market, there’s a critical step that often gets overshadowed by traditional quality assurance practices.
While rigorous testing plays an important role in ensuring functionality, it represents only a fraction of what truly creates meaningful impact. The real transformation happens when development teams transcend the role of builders and become genuine users, actively engaging with their product in real scenarios to address authentic challenges. This shift from creator to customer fundamentally changes how value is understood and delivered.
The ultimate goal extends far beyond identifying bugs during testing cycles. It’s about demonstrating tangible value and ensuring exceptional user experiences before asking customers to depend on the solution. This approach transforms the development process from a linear progression of build-test-ship into a dynamic cycle of continuous value validation.
Internal use builds better products
When companies actively use their own software, they unlock a powerful cycle of continuous innovation that traditional testing methods simply cannot replicate. This internal adoption creates an environment where genuine discovery happens naturally, often in real-world conditions that mirror or even exceed the complexity customers face in their own environments.
At Dynatrace, the “Dynatrace on Dynatrace” philosophy exemplifies this approach, where internal teams don’t just test the platform but live within it daily. During feature delivery, teams gain invaluable insights into the business impact of their work, revealing that observability extends far beyond technical metrics. This realization led to combining business information with technical observability data, creating a more holistic understanding of product performance and user value.
The innovation loop becomes particularly powerful through this internal engagement. As the product evolves, new internal use cases emerge organically, creating a self-sustaining cycle where today’s solutions inspire tomorrow’s innovations. Many features that define Dynatrace today exist precisely because internal teams identified needs that perfectly aligned with customer requirements too.
It’s more cost-effective to fail privately
The traditional approach of discovering issues after customer deployment carries significant costs that extend far beyond immediate bug fixes. When problems surface in customer environments, the impact reverberates through support channels, damages relationships, and creates lasting impressions that can take months or years to overcome. Customers form lasting memories of negative experiences, particularly when features break unexpectedly or cause operational disruptions.
However, the real opportunity lies in recognizing that quality issues represent only the tip of the iceberg. If users encounter a poor experience from their very first interaction with a new feature, recovery becomes exponentially more challenging. The “Dynatrace on Dynatrace” approach ensures that real-world users experience the complete user journey, providing feedback that helps create intuitive navigation and natural feature adoption. This internal validation process identifies not just functional problems but experiential friction that might never surface in traditional testing scenarios.
Using the product internally first establishes a protected environment where failure becomes a learning opportunity rather than a reputation risk. Features undergo genuine stress-testing in authentic conditions without the consequences of public exposure. Internal stakeholders offer more patience for iteration and remain readily available for immediate feedback sessions, unlike paying customers who may simply abandon problematic features. This approach results in dramatically higher confidence at launch and creates smoother customer experiences from the moment of first contact.
It signals confidence and builds trust
There’s a profound but often understated signal sent when technology vendors actively rely on their own solutions to run their business operations. This internal adoption communicates a level of conviction that transcends marketing messages, essentially declaring that the product is reliable enough to stake the company’s own success upon. In B2B contexts where operational reliability can make or break business relationships, this authenticity resonates powerfully with potential customers.
The transparency of internal use creates a unique form of credibility that’s increasingly valuable in today’s sophisticated software market. Decision-makers can observe how vendors handle their own challenges using their products, gaining insights into real-world performance that no demo or case study can provide. This visibility builds confidence not just in the product’s capabilities but in the vendor’s commitment to continuous improvement.
Conversely, customers quickly notice when vendors’ internal teams avoid using their own tools for critical operations. Such disconnects raise questions about product limitations, vendor confidence, and the gap between marketing promises and operational reality. In an era where software buyers are more knowledgeable and sceptical than ever, trust is built through demonstrated conviction rather than persuasive presentations. The most compelling sales story becomes the vendor’s own success story, told through daily operational excellence rather than carefully crafted narratives.
Before you launch, look in the mirror
Launching new features should represent genuine progress and momentum, marking meaningful steps toward delivering authentic value to customers. However, true confidence in new releases cannot emerge from passing automated tests alone, no matter how comprehensive those test suites might be. Real confidence develops through lived experience with the product, through understanding both its transformative impact and its practical limitations before anyone else encounters them.
If an organization isn’t using its own products the way customers will, you’re essentially navigating without instruments in an increasingly competitive market. The cost of this blind flight continues to rise as customer expectations increase and alternatives multiply. The companies that thrive will be those that master the art of being their own best customers, creating products that they themselves depend upon.
