# Supabase uses dogfooding and team capacity to adapt Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/s/supabase-uses-dogfooding-and-team-capacity-to-adapt/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy. - Speaker: [Paul Copplestone](https://realalpha.app/people/paul-copplestone/) · Paul Copplestone is cofounder and CEO of Supabase. - Host: [Garry Tan](https://realalpha.app/people/garry-tan/) · President & CEO, Y Combinator · Co-founded Posterous and Initialized Capital, an early Coinbase backer. - Host: [Harj Taggar](https://realalpha.app/people/harj-taggar/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · Co-founded Auctomatic with the Collison brothers and later Triplebyte. - Host: [Diana Hu](https://realalpha.app/people/diana-hu/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · CTO of Escher Reality; after Niantic bought it, ran AR for Pokémon GO. - Host: [Jared Friedman](https://realalpha.app/people/jared-friedman/) · Managing partner, Y Combinator · Co-founded Scribd, which YC funded in 2006; has advised 20+ YC unicorns. - Show: Lightcone - Episode: [Why Everyone Is About To Have Their Own Database](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/), Oct 30, 2026 - Moment: 45:25 to 48:34 of the episode (3 min), playing on https://realalpha.app/s/supabase-uses-dogfooding-and-team-capacity-to-adapt/; the episode from there: https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2725 ## Quote > “dogfooding is one of the most important things at least from our perspective so i'm **always trying these tools** with ours to know where are the gaps” > — [Paul Copplestone](https://realalpha.app/people/paul-copplestone/) at [47:30](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2850) · Lightcone ## Takeaways 1. Choose durable categories such as databases. 2. Dogfood new tools to find gaps in your product. 3. Reserve team capacity for partner experiments, knowing many will fail. ## About this segment Paul Copplestone says to choose durable markets, dogfood new tools and leave room to test partner ideas. Many experiments fail, but the successful ones help Supabase ride new waves. From “Why Everyone Is About To Have Their Own Database”, Oct 30, 2026. [Watch the full episode](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/) ## Transcript Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there. [45:30](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2730) Do you have any thoughts for people as they try to emulate what you've done? One thing that helps me sleep well at night is that it's kind of the Lindy effect. Databases have been around for 50 years. I think they'll be around for another 50 years. And this is one that at the end of AI, no matter what, I'm pretty certain there'll be databases. So apart from that, whatever you will, like you've got to choose categories that are very durable. [45:56](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2756) And if you're going to bet your entire life, which is basically what I'm doing, you choose the category that you feel is worth investing in. I think the other one is like things are changing so far. so we don't try to have all the answers as super base but we just try to make sure that we're always adapting the fastest and you know for me i've evaluated or like watched a lot of my favorite dev tools um they kind of start with the developer focus and then they always move up and they become very corporate and they kind of stagnate a lot and they lose that that love and from our point of view at least from my point of view companies like stripe for example they have this real like someone like a founder who just cares about like almost focusing on what the new ways of building are and so if you're like building for this next wave you just always need to be one eye on the [46:59](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2819) future of what is next which is a very short timeline now things are moving so fast but um being super adaptable um and making sure you've got capacity within your team to shift very fast that's the thing that we're that we're focusing on for the next year i think that you've like maybe any specific things you've learned there like because you've had you know maybe you had the initial vibe coding inflection point and then the opus 48 inflection point and just cogen like when the next sort of wave hopefully next like many inflection point hit for you but like are there things that you'll you'll do differently to be better prepared for it well first of all like dogfooding is one of the most important things at least from our perspective so i'm always trying these tools with ours to know where are the gaps there's no better feedback than [47:46](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2866) you getting stuck on your own tooling and then having capacity so we try to partner with with the the key players in the space and this ecosystem play has been really helpful because they give us feedback on what they're building so that and we try to leave some capacity within the team which is also very difficult but um so that when they have ideas we can we can give it a shot and not a lot of the bets actually win even when they seem like we're partnering together to do some new cool thing we actually don't know they might sound cool and we try them out and they They kind of flop, but the ones that do work then end up meaning that we ride this awesome wave together. [48:27](https://realalpha.app/v/vl7HiMdGfjo/?t=2907) That's a great note to end on. Paul, thanks so much, man. We'll see you guys next time.