PostHog launched its open-source MVP on Hacker News four weeks into coding

What they ran

Founders James Hawkins and Tim Glaser built six distinct products over nine months before they settled on open-source analytics. PostHog's about page says they launched the MVP on Hacker News in 2020, four weeks after they began coding. They also posted the code on GitHub, where developers who want new tools already spend their time. GitHub stars acted as social proof, and the open-source format let users fork, change and contribute to the product.

What happened

According to an outside breakdown of PostHog's growth, the product had hundreds of users and real community engagement within a month of the pivot. Unlike the previous five tries, adoption came without much outreach. PostHog now says more than 500,000 teams use its products.

What the account does not show

Neither source says how many early users came from Hacker News and how many came from GitHub. "Hundreds" is not an exact count, and the sources give no baseline to compare against. The 500,000 figure is a later, self-reported number, and the company does not tie it to the launch. The earlier tries appear only as a contrast to this one, and we hear about this launch because it worked, which is survivorship bias.