PostHog

Alumni Q&A

How did you decide to apply to Y Combinator? What was your experience applying, going through the batch, and fundraising at demo day?

The founders, who describe themselves as outsiders to Silicon Valley, applied because they saw YC as the strongest environment for starting a company, and they consider it the most significant step in their careers.

How have you kept in touch with the YC community and continued to use YC resources & programs since the batch ended?

The founders spend time each week with other YC founders or partners, relying on the community for advice, fundraising, marketing, sales, and personal connections.

What's the history of your company from getting started until the present day? What were the big inflection points?

The company pivoted five times, was accepted into YC, and pivoted again a month into the batch. Frustrated by repeatedly rebuilding analytics with each pivot, the founders built and shipped PostHog, which gained traction on Hacker News.

What is the core problem you are solving? Why is this a big problem? What made you decide to work on it?

The company addresses the problem of engineers spending time assembling product insights from scattered sources and on data engineering work. It provides the tools needed in a single product so engineers can focus on building rather than gathering data.

What is your long-term vision? If you truly succeed, what will be different about the world?

The founders aim to increase the number of successful products by helping engineers work more effectively on product decisions. Their strategy is to combine the tools needed to evaluate feature success into one integrated product, become the default choice by being adopted early by technical founders and engineers, and serve as the core pipeline connecting customer and product data to data warehouses to remain embedded as customers scale.