PostHog · Strategy · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

Where should PostHog focus next?

PostHog is an open source platform that helps product and engineering teams understand how people use software. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

Strategic thinking
User focus
Prioritization
Experimentation
Decision making

The situation

The founder asks you for a recommendation on where the company should focus next. The team has spent months exploring several adjacent software ideas, first around sales workflows and then around problems closer to engineering teams. Each prototype has taught the team something useful, but none has yet shown unmistakable pull or a simple story about who the product is for. That creates a hard tension. The safest move is to keep improving the most developed current idea, but that could mean optimizing a local maximum and missing a bigger opportunity. Another pivot could uncover a better direction, but it would also cost time, focus, and credibility, and the team cannot keep changing course forever. Assume the team has a working open source codebase, notes from recent user calls across the concepts tested, and enough runway to place one focused bet for the next two quarters. The founder wants a product strategy that names the user, defines the problem to solve first, and explains how to learn fast enough to know whether to stay the course or pivot again.

What to produce

A 1 to 2 page product strategy memo.

Your answer must

Name one primary target user and one core problem to solve first, and explain why this is a better starting point than at least one alternative user or problem.
Compare at least two strategic paths, including continuing with the strongest current prototype and making a sharper pivot, with pros, risks, and what evidence supports each path.
Recommend one path for the next two quarters and state what you would build only to learn versus what you would invest in for durability.
Define 3 decision signals or milestones that would tell the team to continue, narrow scope, or pivot again.
Explain how the open source nature of the product should influence distribution, feedback loops, or speed of learning.

Constraints

You can recommend only one primary user and one core problem for the next two quarters.
Do not rely on hiring a large go to market team or raising new capital to make the plan work.
Base the plan on evidence the team could gather through user conversations, lightweight builds, and early product usage.

Format

Use short section headers and include a simple table that compares the strategic options.

How PostHog actually played it

PostHog's founder walks through six pivots, from a sales territory tool through engineering retention tools to open source product analytics. The lessons cover local versus global maxima and having a user in mind. A frank case on iterating on product ideas.

Write down the user before building
Avoid optimizing a local maximum
Do not be afraid to build to learn

Built from A story about pivots by James Hawkins.