How to do discovery

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How to do discovery at PostHog

The discovery mindset

Discovery isn’t walking through every PostHog feature. It’s having real conversations with customers to figure out if PostHog will be a good fit for them. Learn their problems, see how they solve things today, and find the people who’ll get excited enough to bring us in.

This is meant to be a guide, not a rule-set. Each person has their own unique style. The goal here is to surface the right insights, by providing a framework for how to go about asking the right questions vs. a talk-track for how to run discussions with customers.

Core principles:

  • Curiosity over pitching - Be genuinely interested in their challenges
  • Find the pain - People buy solutions to problems, not features
  • Identify champions - Someone needs to sell internally when you're not there

Discovery isn't one-sided questioning - it's give and take. You learn something, you show something, you ask questions, repeat. The goal is understanding what customers are trying to accomplish so we can focus on relevant features rather than discussing everything PostHog can do.

Why discovery matters

PostHog is a broad product suite with common combinations depending on the use case. Discovery helps us provide customers with a better experience by understanding their specific needs so we can:

  • Conduct a demo that actually matters - No one wants to sit through features they'll never use
  • Draw connections between their problems and our products - There are 10+ products (and counting), we want to help them find the right combination
  • Skip the irrelevant stuff and get to the good bits - Customers' time is valuable, and generic sales calls aren't
  • Reduce time & effort needed for them to make a confident decision - By understanding requirements upfront, we can address concerns early and focus on what matters most to stakeholders

Timeline

We don't need to cram every question into the first call. Discovery is always happening and we have many customers who stay with us long term. Use each touchpoint to learn something new.

Other channels

Beyond the 1st call, there are other spaces where we frequently communicate with customers:

Most customers are preferential towards Slack while others prefer email/Zoom. Slack is central to communications at PostHog and tends to be a great place to offer real-time support and ask questions.

Before your 1st call

Prep work

Some preparation is recommended before speaking with any new customer interested in engaging further with PostHog.

Examples:
  • Learn more about our ICP
  • Cross-reference Vitally, PostHog, Slack and Salesforce for any prior engagement or current activity/status.
  • Learn more about who you're speaking with via LinkedIn/X.
  • Visit the company's website, learn about their product, who they are marketing/selling to, language they are using. Familiarize yourself with what may be important to them.
  • Use ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, etc. to help research the company, their industry, macroeconomic factors and potential use cases for PostHog.

What makes PostHog different

The demo

Demoing PostHog is an important part of our sales process and how we first introduce PostHog to customers. It brings immediate value to a call, is consistent with other messaging and builds credibility with technical customers. A demo is also a great opportunity to learn more about your customer's business.

Principles

  • Leverage PostHog's technical credibility by showing vs. telling
  • Uses the demo as a conversation starter rather than a monologue
  • Be adaptable
Examples:
  • Demo of Product Analytics: Showing a funnel analysis
    • Questions: "Is there a conversion flow you're currently struggling to understand?"
  • Demo of Session Replay: Showing user session with errors
    • Questions: "How do you currently know if users are struggling with your product?"
  • Demo of Web Analytics: Showing UTM sources breakdown
    • Questions: "How are you currently attributing conversions across channels?"
  • Demo of Autocapture: Showing retroactive insight creation
    • Questions: "How much dev time do you currently spend on instrumentation?"
  • Demo of Data pipelines: Showing how to create a destination
    • Questions: "Is there anywhere you'd ideally like to send data back out to?"
  • Demo of Error Tracking: Showing error dashboard
    • Questions: "How do you currently prioritize bugs to fix first?"
  • Demo of Data warehouse: Showing available sources
    • Questions: "Are there other data sources that would be valuable to query alongside PostHog data?"
  • Demo of Experiments: Showing Experiment dashboard
    • Questions: "How are you currently cross-referencing test results with other user-behavior data you have?"
  • Demo of LLM Observability: Showing LLM Dashboard
    • Questions: "How are you currently gathering data for your AI/LLM products?"
Other questions you could ask while demoing:
  • "Who else would find this valuable?"
  • "How does this compare to how you're handling this today?"
  • "Of what was covered, what did you find most valuable?"

The demo itself can become a great discovery tool. A customer's reactions, questions and engagement levels can provide you with insights on their priorities, pain points and team dynamics much more organically vs. direct questioning alone. Objections can also come up during a demo and these can be turned into discovery opportunities by asking "tell me more," "how do you handle this today," or "how would you use that".

Asking questions

Discovery is about understanding the real problem through natural conversation. The goal is to be genuinely curious about their situation, not to interrogate them.

Question principles:

  • Use "what" and "how" to signal curiosity rather than judgment
  • Start questions with "tell me...", "explain to me...", or "describe to me..." to avoid yes/no answers
  • Focus on understanding their current state and challenges
  • Ask about consequences and impact naturally as the conversation flows

Qualifying

A key component of discovery is qualifying customers to ensure they are a good fit and whether they're speaking with the right people at PostHog. You can find more about how we qualify at PostHog here.

Qualifiers:

  • They fit the ICP
  • Path to $2k/mo or $20k/year in spend
  • Clear problem that PostHog can solve
  • Have technical resources to assist with instrumentation of PostHog
  • Budget and timeline in place (or keen on moving quickly)

Disqualifiers:

  • No path to <$20K minimum annual spend - Our team looks after customers who are paying or could pay <$20k+/yr.
  • Not in ICP - You can gather great product insights when chatting with folks in other roles, but we tend to work best with our ICP.
  • Can't meet technical requirements - To be successful, the customer needs to (at minimum), be able to implement PostHog via the SDKs/JS.
  • Support request - Be helpful, but if it's better suited for support, you can send them thru the available Support channels.
  • Startup program - We have a special program designed for startups interested in PostHog.
  • Requesting a BAA/DPA - We built both a BAA and DPA generator where customers can self-serve. If a customer wants to vary any terms, we can review changes to our terms if the contract is above <$20k/year.
  • No engineering resources - There is some coding required for a tool like PostHog and customers will need some engineering support to be successful.
  • Strict compliance constraints - A customer may ask for a niche security or privacy certification that we currently don't have.
  • Need self-hosted - PostHog does have an open source self-hosted product, but we currently don't offer any support for it.

Identifying your champion

Champions aren't just customers you're friendly with - they're people who will actively sell PostHog internally. Although not always necessary, working with a champion can help make deals more efficient and help provide us with honest feedback along the way.

Questions to identify champions:

  • "Who else is affected by this problem?" (Look for advocacy in their response)
  • "How do you typically evaluate new tools at [Company]?" (Champions know the process)
  • "What would need to happen for this to get approved?" (Champions understand internal politics)
  • "Who would be most excited about solving this?" (Champions will often name themselves)

Characteristics to listen for:

  • Using "we" and "us" language (ownership)
  • Asking for detailed technical / instrumentation questions
  • Mentioning budget or approval processes prior to you asking
  • Referencing internal stakeholders by name
  • Expressing personal frustration with their current state
  • Have a vision for what future state needs to look like

Follow-up questions for potential champions:

  • "What's your role in making this decision?"
  • "How have you handled similar evaluations in the past?"
  • "What concerns might others have about changing tools?"
  • "Besides you, who else would we need to win over?"
  • "What questions should I be asking that I haven't asked yet?"
  • "If you were me, how would you go about positioning PostHog?"
  • "What's the best way to position this to [insert stakeholder here]"
  • "How can I help you build your internal case for PostHog?"

While you should start identifying potential champions early in the process, building these relationships is an ongoing effort during the sales process.

Discovery call structure

Note: If this is a first meeting, you'll want to leave ample time for the demo (see the demo section above).

1. Opening & understanding the situation (~5-7mins)

Goal: Get rapport, learn about their setup, and uncover any frustrations

Natural questions to flow between:

  • "What prompted you to reach out to PostHog?"
  • "What are you using for analytics today and how's it working?"
  • "What's your experience with tools like PostHog?"
  • "Who on your team uses this data and for what?"
  • "What decisions are you trying to make that you can't make today?"
  • "How does your team typically evaluate new tools?"
  • "Is there anyone else who should be part of these conversations?"

2. PostHog demo (~15-20min)

Goal: Show PostHog, focus on relevant features, establish technical credibility, get feedback and ask questions

Reference the demo section above for how you can incorporate discovery into your demo and learn more about the process here.

3. Closing and next steps (~3-10min)

Goal: Establish timeline, confirm mutual fit and next steps

  • If its not a fit, that's okay! We want to ensure we're not wasting anyone's time. Get alignment from the customer and hopefully there is an opportunity in the future.
  • If there is a clear opportunity, offer up some actionable next steps (free trial, invite to Slack, generating a quote, help reduce spend, scheduling a call etc.).
  • Set expectation that you'll follow up via email or Slack.
  • Gain an understanding of their timeline
  • Route the customer to the next best channel if they are better handled by a separate team (Support, Startup program etc.).

We like to keep things conversational - if you're genuinely curious about their situation, this should all come naturally!

Summary

Discovery can help with addressing gaps in your knowledge about a customer and makes efficient use of both your time and theirs. By understanding their actual needs, challenges, and decision-making process upfront, you can:

  • Keep conversations focused
  • Avoid wasting time on irrelevant features or solutions
  • Build trust through genuine understanding
  • Identify the right internal champions
  • Move deals forward more efficiently

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