Product enablement

Overview

PostHog has a broad and growing set of products, and folks in GTM roles need to develop and maintain deep product knowledge for each individually, as well as understand how they work together. This deep understanding helps us drive initial adoption of PostHog as well as cross-sell and expansion. Without a structured enablement process, we face several challenges:

  • Onboarding gaps: New joiners lack a clear path to learn our products systematically
  • Keeping current: With continuous product development, it's difficult for team members to stay up to date on changes and new features
  • Uneven expertise: Knowledge levels vary across the team, leading to inconsistent customer experiences
  • Missed opportunities: Without comprehensive product knowledge, we may miss adoption and expansion opportunities with customers

Rather than hiring an external sales enablement person (who would need significant time to ramp up on PostHog and wouldn't speak with customers regularly enough), we're leveraging internal expertise to build and maintain our enablement program.

How it works

Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs)

Each product area has a designated SME from the Sales, CS, or Onboarding teams. The SME is responsible for:

  • Coordinating content creation for their product area (not necessarily creating everything themselves)
  • Keeping content current as products evolve
  • Facilitating knowledge sharing through regular updates
  • Being a bridge between GTM and Product to ensure a two-way feedback loop exists

Important: SMEs are enablers, not gatekeepers. The goal is to level up the entire team, not to create dependencies on specific individuals.

Content areas

For each product, SMEs should develop and maintain content covering:

  • Sales messaging for customers not currently using the product
  • Demo best practices showing how to effectively demonstrate their product
  • AI features how to use PostHog AI for maximum effect within their product
  • Implementation considerations to help customers avoid common issues
  • Real-world use cases demonstrating practical applications
  • Competitive positioning relative to alternative solutions
  • Customer stories highlighting successful implementations
  • Product updates covering new features and changes

Content should be primarily recorded (Loom, Gong) or visual (Pitch) to support our async, distributed team.

New hire onboarding

New joiners to Sales, CS, and Onboarding teams go through PostHog GTM Academy, which incorporates product training content from SMEs in a structured learning path. This ensures consistent foundational knowledge across the team.

Staying current

It's on the SME to schedule a regular (nominally monthly, but this may vary by product - use your judgement here) update call with the GTM team and someone from their product team to cover:

  • Share recent developments and new features
  • Demonstrate new capabilities
  • Hold a "no stupid questions" session for team members to ask anything about the product

We're a global team. Try to schedule the meeting to get as many folks live as possible (8-10 AM Pacific time is an ideal slot here), but also ensure it is recorded.

Content storage

  • Handbook: This page lists SMEs and links to training materials
  • Video content: Stored in Loom in a protected folder
  • Written/visual content: Stored in Pitch or Google Drive
  • Last updated dates: Displayed alongside each product area's materials

All content should include a "last updated" date so team members know they're working with current information.

As we develop content, we can link directly to it from this page.

Product areas and SMEs

Product AreaSMELast Content Update
Product analyticsBen Smith-
Web/Customer/Revenue analyticsJon-
Session replayDana-
Feature flagsSachin-
ExperimentsSachin-
Error trackingChristophe-
Surveys/Product toursTBD-
Data pipelines (batch and realtime)Ryan-
Data warehouseRyan-
LLM AnalyticsLeo-
WorkflowsPhil-
PostHog CodeLandon-

For SMEs

Getting started as an SME

If you've volunteered to be an SME for a product area:

First of all, thank you!

  1. Connect with the product team - Consider joining sprint planning calls to stay informed
  2. Audit existing content - Review what training materials already exist
  3. Identify gaps - Determine what content needs to be created or updated
  4. Recruit help - Enlist others (team members, product team, etc.) to help create content
  5. Establish a cadence - Plan regular content reviews and updates

Best practices

  • Don't work alone: Work with product teams and other GTM team members to develop comprehensive materials
  • Stay connected: Join product team sprint planning calls if helpful and time zones allow
  • Gather feedback: Channel top feature requests to product teams (but don't act as a gatekeeper)
  • Keep it fresh: Review and update content at least quarterly

What this is NOT

This enablement program is not:

  • A replacement for individual expertise: Everyone should use SME content to develop their own product knowledge
  • An expert escalation path: SMEs aren't brought into customer conversations as specialists; the goal is to enable everyone to be effective independently
  • A one-person show: SMEs coordinate content creation but shouldn't develop everything themselves
  • Cross-sell playbooks: That's a separate initiative
  • Customer-facing content: This is internal enablement; customer-specific demos should be created by account owners as needed

New products

When a new product is approaching customer availability:

  1. Identify an SME early in the development process (bonus points if you self identify with a handbook PR)
  2. SME coordinates with the product team to understand capabilities and use cases
  3. SME develops initial training content before general availability
  4. SME delivers a new product training session to the wider GTM team
  5. Product area is added to the table above

Switching SMEs

If you don't want to be an SME for a product area anymore, or want to switch with someone else to stay fresh, first identify someone else who is willing to step in and make the change as a PR to this page.

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