Startups

PostHog for Startups is our program to support early stage companies. We offer generous credits together with a bunch of extra goodies. This page covers how we run the program.

The YC Deal is a separate deal that we do for the latest batch of YC companies and has its own page here.

Any company that is <2 years old and has raised $5m in funding or less is eligible.

What happens after companies apply

1. Company applies by signing up to PostHog and then emailing us at startups@.
2. CS verify they meet the criteria and apply a $50k Stripe coupon to their account that expires in 12 months.
3. The user receives an automated email, via Zapier, which provides them with a link to claim their merch via Printfection, and informs them of the rest of the program.

The PostHog for Startups deal is also posted on our profile at F6S here. They still follow the same process as above.

Welcome merch

Amplifying announcements

We encourage members of the PostHog for Startups program to inform us when they have an upcoming launch, or other announcement. We will then share that announcement with other members of the program (via the newsletter), as well as sharing it more widely on our socials and other channels.

We don't make guarantees about how we'll or if we'll share announcements, and do so only at our own discretion.

Monthly office hours

We host private monthly office hours with one of Tim (engineering), James (product, company building), Charles (ops, marketing), or Simon (sales, CS). Joe organizes these and sends out information in the monthly newsletter.

Create the calendar event with a Google Meet link in advance and then just manually add people to it if they reply to the email or newsletter. We use Meet so we don't have any issues with hosts not attending.

Office hours are typically very informal. Hosts can prepare demos, decks or other assets if they choose to, but are generally encouraged to be opportunities for users to ask questions and share feedback.

Monthly newsletter

Once a month, we send a short newsletter to all users in the program. We send the email as a Customer.io broadcast and there is a template setup in Customer.io.

Before the email is sent each month it is important to manually update the PostHog for Startups segment in Customer.io by importing all new email addresses from the mailing list.

The email is still evolving, but typically includes the following sections:

- A short intro and invitation for users to share important announcements with us
- Information on the next office hours event
- A link to the most recent startup spotlight
- 'Our thoughts on:' a topic which is relevant to founders, e.g. pricing strategies
- Information on new features or launches

Startup spotlight

Each month, we'll pick a startup to highlight. Joe will go through the list, find a candidate to approach, interview them and then write up the responses as a blog post which we'll also publish on Twitter, LinkedIn and user Slack.

The questions generally follow a standard format, but can evolve.

What is your product, and why is it cool?
Why did you decide this was a problem worth solving?
Who are you building for?
What are you most excited about?
What are you most worried about?
What is something you know today that you wish you'd known at the beginning?

Referral program

Users who are accepted into Posthog for Startups can refer in other customers in order to unlock extra credit for both parties. This referral program is currently only open to users who have been accepted into PostHog for Startups.

Referred customers should apply for the PostHog for Startups program as normal, but specify in the sign-up form the team which referred them into the program. The Customer Service team will issue an additional $5,000 of PostHog credit to both the referred customer and the referrer if the customer is accepted into the program.

There are currently no limits on how many startups can be referred into the program successfully.

Customer can also refer an investor, or startup accelerator. If an investor or accelerator signs up as a PostHog for Startups partner, we will double the credits of the referring customer to a total of $100,000.