New starter onboarding

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Your first few weeks

Welcome to the PostHog Sales and Customer Success team! We only hire about 1 in 400 applicants, so you've done well to make it here! Unlike a lot of companies, we don't have a super-long onboarding process and would prefer you to be up and running with your customer base as quickly as possible. Here are the things you should focus on in your first few weeks at PostHog to help you achieve that.

Week 1

Day 1

  • Meet with Simon who will run through this plan and answer any questions you may have. In addition, come equipped to talk about any nuances around how you prefer to work (e.g. schedules, family time etc.).
  • Meet with Mine who will get you set up with core tooling:
  • If you start on a Monday, join your first PostHog All Hands (at 4.30pm UK/8.30am PT) and be prepared to have a strong opinion on whether pineapple belongs on pizza.
  • If you start on a Monday, join your first Sales and CS standup.
    • We fill in a GitHub issue every week before this meeting so we are prepared for the discussion topics. Simon will add your GitHub handle to the template.

Rest of week 1

  • Ask team members in your region to be invited to some customer calls so you can gain an understanding of how we work with customers.
  • Check out some Jimminy calls.
  • Start to learn and practise a demo of PostHog.
  • Read all of the Sales and CS section in the Handbook (and update it as you learn more).
  • Meet with Charles, the exec responsible for Sales and CS.

Week 2

  • During your first week, Simon will figure out your initial book of business (around 10-15 accounts for AEs, 30 for CSMs). We will review these at the start of your second week.
  • Shadow more live calls and listen to more Jimminy recordings.
  • Towards the end of the week, schedule a demo and feedback session with Simon. We might need to do a couple of iterations over the next few weeks as you take onboard feedback, don't worry if that's the case!
  • Review your current book of customers, and prioritize who you want to reach out to first.
  • Get comfortable with the PostHog Docs.

AE-specific

  • We'll start routing new Salesforce Leads to you at the end of week 1. Start to review these and reach out, using a shared booking link with someone else from your region so they can back you up in the first few weeks.

In-person onboarding

Ideally, this will happen in Week 3 or 4, and will be with a few existing team members (depending on where we do it) and will be 3-4 days covering:

  • Demo practice session with the team.
  • The data we track on customers in PostHog and some hands-on exercises to get you comfortable using PostHog itself.
  • Deep dive on Vitally tracking.
  • No stupid questions session.

The next few weeks

  • Focus on taking more and more ownership on calls so that team members are just there as a safety net.
  • Continue to meet with your book of customers and inbound leads.

Major Milestones

Month 1

By the end of month 1 you should:

  • Be leading customer calls and demos on your own
  • Have evaluations in flight with support from the team if needed (AE)
  • Have made contact with everyone in your book of business in some form
  • Be starting to solve technical problems for your book with occasional help (CSM)

Month 2

By the end of month 2 you should:

  • Have closed your first Medium annual deal (new or conversion to annual) (AE)
  • Be leading evaluations on your own (AE)
  • Have identified some opportunities to add to your book from self-serve signups who aren't paying yet (AE)

Month 4

By the end of month 4 - you should:

  • Have closed multiple contracts by this point (either new or expansion/renewal) through the whole process (AE)
  • Be independently working with your entire book to solve tricky technical problems with minimal assistant (CSM)

Other tools that are useful

  • Cal.com for shared meeting booking links
  • Loom for short videos (Simon can invite you to the company account)
  • Trumpet for sales rooms

New hire frequently asked questions

How does support work at PostHog?

  • Generally, you're expected to be able to be the first line of support for customers at PostHog. You should be able to answer most yourself - that's why we hire Technical AEs and CSMs after all! #max-ai in Slack can often help too.
  • If you can't solve a customer's problem (it happens) then follow our standard support process.

Can I login as a customer?

  • Visit the /admin/ endpoint on the cloud they are on. You can then search for them via email and log in. Be careful clicking around here as you can accidentally delete a person/organization! You should get their permission first unless it's an emergency, i.e. to resolve an incident.

Questions?

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