Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

1. A concrete framework, from a long-running sales training school, for making sure every call ends with a mutually agreed,... Sandler Training Article · Starting Up How to Ensure Every Call Ends with Next Steps Frank Gustafson
2. A short, specific essay on why leading with the customer's need, not your product, is what makes a pitch land, with a simple... Dave Bailey Essay · Starting Up How to Sell the Problem Before Selling the Solution Dave Bailey
3. Gong built this from analyzing hundreds of thousands of real sales emails, so the advice on what to put in a post-call recap,... Gong Article · 12 min read · Starting Up 6 Cold Email Follow-Ups that Speed Up Deals Gong
4. Written for the founder who built the product and is now terrified of the word sales, this argues the skill set is closer to... Y Combinator Startup Library Essay · Starting Up Enterprise sales for hackers Y Combinator Startup Library
5. Benn Stancil cofounded a company that sold into large enterprises, and this essay is an unusually honest account of how slow,... Benn Stancil (Substack) Essay · Starting Up So you want to sell to the enterprise? Benn Stancil
6. This is the foundational text on separating people from the problem and negotiating on interests rather than positions, which... Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Book · 240 pages · Starting Up Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
7. Sabeer Bhatia, who sold Hotmail to Microsoft, traces his negotiating instincts back to haggling in vegetable markets in... tim.blog Essay · 8 min read · Starting Up How to Negotiate like an Indian - 7 Rules Tim Ferriss
8. This is a short, practical guide to making invoice follow up a routine instead of an awkward one off, with an actual cadence:... Chaser Article · 7 min read · Starting Up 7 tips to collect unpaid invoices from customers Chaser
9. Lemkin's blunt answer is that the founder has to get the first 10 customers personally, through their own network and direct... Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) Article · Starting Up Dear SaaStr: How Do I Get My First 10 Customers? Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)
10. Picks up right where the previous piece leaves off: once you've decided to charge for the pilot, how do you actually structure... SaaStr Article · Starting Up Dear SaaStr: We're Starting a Big Paid Pilot. How Do We Maximize the Chances of Success? Jason Lemkin
11. A pricing consultant's argument that most companies discount reflexively instead of strategically, with a framework for... Harvard Business Review Article · Starting Up The Art of Discounting Rafi Mohammed
12. A short, sharp reminder that your price tells a story, and that cutting it to close a deal usually just tells the buyer the... Seth's Blog Essay · Starting Up On pricing Seth Godin
13. The other side of the discount question: sometimes a genuinely low price is the right strategy, not a concession. Jason Lemkin... SaaStr Article · Starting Up Dear SaaStr: When Does It Make Sense to Price Low in the Market? Jason Lemkin
14. A practical, no-nonsense walkthrough of what a pipeline is for and how to keep it honest, written by a company that sells CRM... Close Article · Starting Up The Ultimate Sales Pipeline Guide: How to Build, Manage, & Measure Close
15. A short, honest account of the exact failure mode this question warns about: a solo founder loses a good prospect purely from... Indie Hackers Thread · Starting Up Built a dead-simple pipeline tracker after losing a deal because I forgot to follow up Indie Hackers
16. Welsh shows the exact two-step process he used to build a million-dollar pipeline from cold DMs: find people already talking... Justin Welsh Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up How to Get Replies from Your Dream Customers Justin Welsh
17. This is the LinkedIn half of the question: a simple system using alerts and triggers (funding news, new hires, press mentions)... Justin Welsh Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up How to Find More Customers on LinkedIn Justin Welsh
18. Ferriss writes from the other side of the inbox: what actually gets a reply from someone who gets hundreds of pitches a day.... Tim Ferriss Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up 5 Tips for E-mailing Busy People Tim Ferriss
19. Sethi gives word-for-word scripts and, more usefully, the follow-up move almost nobody does: closing the loop by telling... Ramit Sethi Article · 10 min read · Starting Up How To Connect w/ Busy People (& actually get HAPPY replies) Ramit Sethi
20. A straightforward six-part checklist (subject line, personalization, benefit to them, credibility, one call-to-action, respect... Noah Kagan Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Cold Email Tips: 6 Steps to Write Great Cold Emails Noah Kagan
21. Caponi's argument is that admitting what your product is not good at, early and clearly, closes deals faster than trying to... Todd Caponi Book · Starting Up The Transparency Sale Todd Caponi
22. This book is the practical, step-by-step companion to the essay above, built from Dunford working the same structure with over... April Dunford Book · Starting Up Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win April Dunford
23. Gallo breaks down, keynote by keynote, how Jobs turned deeply technical hardware into a demo a room full of non-engineers could... Carmine Gallo Book · Starting Up The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience Carmine Gallo
24. This essay is not about demos, it is about the underlying test our short answer relies on: if you cannot explain something... Farnam Street Essay · Starting Up Feynman Technique: The Ultimate Guide to Learning Anything Faster Farnam Street

Show the next 24