No. 046 · 2020 · San Francisco

PostHog

Pivoted again and again. Now: hedgehogs.

Hedgehog-led growth

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Make my startup a legend
  1. 1 YC, 2020. Idea number five dies.
  2. 2 They keep pivoting.
  3. 3 Then a realization: dev tools need open analytics.
  4. 4 An open-source launch. Stars pour in.
  5. 5 They ship product after product.
  6. 6 The website is an operating system now.
  7. 7 Salaries, handbook, everything: public.
  8. 8 Hedgehogs: 1. Marketing guidelines: 0.
Founders
James Hawkins and Tim Glaser
Founded
2020, San Francisco
What they do
Open-source product analytics and developer tools.

The story

The founders had pivoted through several ideas, mostly before Y Combinator in 2020, and decided a couple of weeks into the batch to build analytics developers could host themselves. It has since grown into a whole suite, run in public with a handbook, open salaries and plenty of hedgehogs.