Letting engineers call the product shots with PostHog CEO James Hawkins

Steve Klein (twitter.com/stevenklein) of LaunchNotes talks with James Hawkins (https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-hawkins/) of PostHog about how they found product market fit after pivoting several times and how they support 23,000 customers through a community without a dedicated support team. They also discuss tips for prioritizing roadmap items and the delicate balance of performance improvements and new functionality.

Podcast links

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-launchnotes-podcast-product-management-product/id1646061444?i=1000597913198

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0pbkj8JKXBT12qUGbfyf1G?si=a698640a27784170

Show links

• James on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/j-hawkins/

• James’ company: https://posthog.com/

• Check out LaunchNotes: https://launchnotes.com

• Join Launch Awesome:  https://www.launchnotes.com/launch-awesome

• Follow on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClgMZx0kGDSSBAQG0wkDRyg

• Check out the LaunchNotes Podcast: https://launchnotes-podcast.launchnotes.io/
  

Show notes

(00:00) - Introductions

(01:02) - Advice for new CEOs

(03:50) - Deciding to pivot

(12:15) - Prioritizing roadmap items

(21:10) - Supporting 23,000 customers without a dedicated support team

(25:21) - Building an inbound sales engine

(30:04) - Defining company vision

(41:38) - Balancing performance improvements with new functionality