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Content at PostHog, Editor of Product for Engineers

Startups ship more per person than big companies – everyone knows this. But how do you retain that advantage as you scale? Our answer is organizing PostHog into small teams (2 to 6 people) – we're currently 47 people and 15 small teams. The golden rules of small teams... 🍕 They need to be genuinely small 2 to 6 people is ideal. More than this and you have a department, which is what we're trying to avoid. Less than two people and, well, you don’t have a team. Think 1-pizza teams, not 2. 🙋 They run themselves Small teams prioritize their own roadmap, talk to customers, run their own sprints, and generally behave like small, autonomous startups. 🧑✈️ They have one leader Team leaders aren't always managers, or the most experienced team member. We prioritize choosing the best person to lead that specific product. Read more about them in James Temperton's newsletter: https://lnkd.in/eGZnkMM9

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Mitchell Tan

building trykondo.com, Superhuman for your LI DMs

1w

Love the golden rules. But actually just here for the cute hedgehogs. Notice notepadhog has a huge pencil but piratehog has a tiny knife. Is there a subtle easter egg lesson buried here about the pen being mightier than the sword in small teams too?

Justin Dunham

Partner, ércule || Analytics, content strategy and SEO for developer companies

1w

Andy Vandervell, do these rules apply for marketing teams as well? How do you all think about that?

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Mathias Colpaert

Building data driven tools for strategy & innovation!

1w

Love this! (And also PostHog ❤️)

Hugo Dias

CTO @ Triple Session

1w

Fantastic and I 💯 agree with that! Small Teams move fast, and ownership is absolutely huge. There is no throwing problems over the fence to other teams or overhead on communication when solving problems as they own the entire piece. Which brings me to the biggest challenge of getting there. When you have a messy setup, the biggest challenge is thinking about how to divide the scope in a way that genuinely empowers these teams. We want to avoid a scenario in which teams are responsible for 70% to 80% of their scope, but the remaining is shared among other teams.  Rules need to be crystal clear so teams can actually have autonomy and move fast. Dependency is what usually slows them down. Putting effort and planning into separating things will pay off in the long run 👌

Aviv Kotek

Engineering Team Lead @ Semperis

1w

💯 💯

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