Tool

PostHog

PostHog · posthog.com Freemium Beginner

PostHog gives you product analytics and session replay in one place, so you can see both what people did (events, funnels) and watch a real session to understand why they got stuck. It is open source and self-hostable, and the free tier (1 million events and 5,000 session recordings a month) covers most MVPs without a card. That mix of numbers plus watching real sessions is exactly what keeps you from over-instrumenting: you track a few events, then watch replays to fill in the story.

  • One tool covers both quantitative events and qualitative session replay, so you learn the what and the why without stitching together two products.
  • The free tier is generous enough for a real MVP, and self-hosting is an option if you want full control of your data.
  • Start by tracking a handful of key actions (signup, activation, the core action), then use session recordings to understand the drop-offs instead of adding more and more events.
Open on posthog.com ↗

The question it answers

  1. How do I actually measure whether a launch worked, beyond the vanity upvotes and traffic spike?

Read with it

  1. The nuanced counterweight: PMF isn't a single binary moment, it can be lost, and 'market' is doing more work than founders... a16z.com Article · ~20 min read 12 Things About Product-Market Fit Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
  2. The reference primer on the metrics and market-sizing logic investors use, including bottom-up market sizing that keeps... a16z Article · ~15 min read 16 Startup Metrics Andreessen Horowitz (a16z)
  3. The origin text for the modern MVP and validated-learning vocabulary every founder now uses. Read it for the mental model that... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries
  4. The definitive talk that reframes launching from a one-shot event into a repeatable tactic, exactly this category's thesis. YC... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Launch (Again and Again) Kat Manalac (Y Combinator)
  5. When there is no category report to point at, you have to build the number yourself, and this is the essay that teaches you... Andreessen Horowitz Essay · ~20 min read 16 More Startup Metrics Anu Hariharan, Frank Chen, Jeff Jordan
  6. The biggest tracking mistake in an MVP is measuring everything and learning nothing. This Amplitude piece walks you through... Amplitude Article Every Product Needs a North Star Metric: Here's How to Find Yours Julia Sholtz
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