Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Graham argues determination, not brilliance, is the top predictor of founder success, and breaks it into components you can... paulgraham.com Article · medium · Starting Up The Anatomy of Determination Paul Graham In 3 answers
2. Written by YC's first Batch Director who coached nearly a thousand early-stage founders, this is a practitioner's library of... thefoundercoach.com Article · medium · Starting Up The User Manual for Founder Psychology (Scale Yourself) Amy Buechler In 3 answers
3. Graham surveyed 100+ founders on what surprised them most about starting up, an honest, de-romanticized picture of the... paulgraham.com Article · medium · Starting Up What Startups Are Really Like Paul Graham In 3 answers
4. A candid founder post-mortem, republished by Inc42, that captures the emotional reality of shutting down, including the line... inc42.com Article · medium · Starting Up Postmortem of a Venture-Backed Startup: Lessons from Sonar Inc42 In 3 answers
5. This is the canonical, primary source for how the world's most influential accelerator actually works, deadlines, batch... Y Combinator Article · Application page + FAQ · Starting Up Apply to Y Combinator Y Combinator In 3 answers
6. India's most prominent early-stage cohort investor and the pioneer of the founder-friendly India SAFE (iSAFE) note, a clean... 100X.VC Article · Program / portfolio site · Starting Up 100X.VC, Funding Simplified, Mentoring Unlimited 100X.VC In 3 answers
7. A globally-branded accelerator with an India-based program, giving founders a clear, concrete reference point for the classic... Techstars Article · Program page · Starting Up Techstars Bangalore Accelerator Techstars In 3 answers
8. A crisp, practical counterweight to NDA paranoia that lays out when a confidentiality agreement is genuinely useful versus when... LinkedIn Article · ~6 min read · Starting Up Startups don't need NDAs: why nobody will steal your idea Startup community (LinkedIn) In 3 answers
9. A brutally honest primary account of taking the VC 'go big or go home' leap and the freedom of choosing a leaner path instead,... sahillavingia.com Essay · ~4,500 words · Starting Up Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company Sahil Lavingia In 3 answers
10. A concrete, honest breakdown of how founders actually pay their own bills while building, savings, a working partner,... FutureSight Ventures Article · ~1,800 words · Starting Up 7 Ways Founders Fund Their Personal Runway John Carbrey In 3 answers
11. Most mentorship advice is vibes; this is evidence, First Round analyzed 100 real matches and distilled what separated the... First Round Review Article · long · Starting Up We Studied 100 Mentor-Mentee Matches, Here's What Makes Mentorship Work First Round Review In 3 answers
12. The definitive essay on why place shapes ambition and what a startup hub actually gives you, 'an audience, and a funnel for... paulgraham.com Essay · medium · Starting Up Cities and Ambition Paul Graham In 3 answers
13. A16z's framing of how modern enterprise software is sold: bottom-up product adoption layered with top-down sales, using... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · ~15 min read · Starting Up Growth+Sales: The New Era of Enterprise Go-to-Market Peter Lauten & Martin Casado In 3 answers
14. Sometimes the two ideas are a proxy for a deeper problem: you have no agreed way to make a call when you disagree. This HBR... Harvard Business Review Article · ~8 min read · Starting Up Cofounders Need to Learn How to (Productively) Disagree Evelyn Nam In 3 answers
15. This is the cleanest short explanation of the two manual-first MVPs and, more importantly, how they differ, which is where most... Mind the Product Article · ~8 min read · Starting Up Wizard of Oz vs Concierge Testing: Behind the Curtain or Behind the Desk? Amanda White In 3 answers
16. When you are building outside the big startup hubs, the honest question is not "what is the theory" but "what actually worked... Indie Hackers Article · ~15 min read · Starting Up Indie hackers share how they got their first 10, 100, and 1,000 customers James Fleischmann In 3 answers
17. When two cofounders disagree on how big the market is, the fastest way out is to stop arguing opinions and turn the... First Round Review Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up The 6 Decision-Making Frameworks That Help Startup Leaders Tackle Tough Calls First Round Review (featuring Elliot Shmukler) In 3 answers
18. Bessemer's report is the most grounded, data-backed look at how Indian SaaS companies actually split between selling to India... Bessemer Venture Partners (Atlas) Article · Long report, roughly 20 to 30 minutes · Starting Up The Rise of SaaS in India Bessemer Venture Partners In 3 answers
19. A dominant player with 80 percent share is almost always over-serving its most profitable customers and quietly ignoring the... Harvard Business Review Essay · About 20 minute read · Starting Up What Is Disruptive Innovation? Clayton M. Christensen, Michael E. Raynor, and Rory McDonald In 3 answers
20. Sajith Pai is an India VC, and he tells on himself here: he passed on WhiteHat Jr. by trusting a headline India TAM number,... sajithpai.com Essay · Starting Up TAM: Notes & Thoughts Sajith Pai In 3 answers
21. This is the canonical warning against throwing away working code and rebuilding from scratch, told through Netscape's rewrite... Joel on Software Essay · ~10 min read · Starting Up Things You Should Never Do, Part I Joel Spolsky In 3 answers
22. If your worry is whether the product itself is the problem, the honest signal is the shape of your retention curve, and Balfour... brianbalfour.com Essay · Starting Up The Never Ending Road To Product Market Fit Brian Balfour In 3 answers
23. Most migration writing is either no-code hype or agency sales pitches. This one gives you an actual checklist to run before you... AlterSquare Essay · Starting Up When to Migrate Off Bubble (or Any No-Code Tool): The Decision Framework Huzefa Motiwala In 3 answers
24. This is the canonical explanation of what a reviewer actually means when they flag your inherited code as risky. Fowler frames... martinfowler.com Essay · About a 10 minute read · Starting Up Technical Debt Martin Fowler In 3 answers

Show the next 24