Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Forms are where most products lose users, whether it is signup, checkout, or onboarding. This is the definitive guide to label... Luke Wroblewski (Rosenfeld Media) Book · ~226 pages · Starting Up Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks Luke Wroblewski In 2 answers
2. Human short term memory is tiny, so making people remember things across screens is a hidden tax on your product. This explains... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 7 min read · Starting Up Memory Recognition and Recall in User Interfaces Raluca Budiu In 2 answers
3. The most memorable proof that watching users pays. A single confusing choice on a checkout form was quietly costing a retailer... LukeW / User Interface Engineering Essay · ~6 min read · Starting Up The $300 Million Button Luke Wroblewski In 2 answers
4. The lowest cost way to watch real people use your product, no recruiting agency required. This guide walks through the coffee... Maze Article · ~9 min read · Starting Up What is Guerrilla Usability Testing? (And How To Do It) Maze In 2 answers
5. From the Google Ventures team, this shows how to go from a fuzzy idea to a tested prototype in a single week. The core move is... Jake Knapp (jakeknapp.com) Book · Approx. 275 pages · Starting Up Sprint: Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Five Days Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz In 2 answers
6. Facebook's first design VP explains what design actually is beneath the surface of pretty screens. She frames it as solving a... The Year of the Looking Glass Essay · 8 minute read · Starting Up Why Design Julie Zhuo In 2 answers
7. This answers the flip side of the question, how much design to do yourself versus when to bring in a real designer. It lays out... First Round Review Article · 30 minute read · Starting Up The Ultimate Guide to the Founding Designer Role First Round Review In 2 answers
8. This is the single best starting point if you think design just means making things look nice. Riley wrote it as an open letter... Wells Riley Essay · 15 min read · Starting Up Startups, This Is How Design Works Wells Riley In 2 answers
9. Graham argues that good design is not just personal opinion, it has real properties (simplicity, honesty, solving the hard... Paul Graham Essay · 25 min read · Starting Up Taste for Makers Paul Graham In 2 answers
10. The book behind the site, and worth it if you want the reasoning, not just the rules. Yablonski walks through familiar apps and... Laws of UX Book · Approx. 150 pages · Starting Up Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products and Services Jon Yablonski In 2 answers
11. The law in the author's own words, with the reasoning and the stakes spelled out. Nielsen explains why users transfer... Jakob Nielsen (Substack) Essay · 7 min read · Starting Up Jakob's Law of the Internet User Experience Jakob Nielsen In 2 answers
12. Testing with the wrong five people teaches you nothing, so this piece helps you decide who your five should actually be.... Lenny's Newsletter Article · Starting Up Identify your bullseye customer in one day Michael Margolis In 2 answers
13. Concrete rules for writing the words on your buttons and menus so nobody has to decode them. It covers using a verb plus a noun... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~9 min read · Starting Up UI Copy: UX Guidelines for Command Names and Keyboard Shortcuts Anna Kaley In 2 answers
14. A short interview where Kunal Shah argues margins come from desire, which design creates, rather than from utility alone. It is... Outlook Business Article · Starting Up Margins Are Earned from Desire, Not Utility, says CRED founder Kunal Shah Kunal Shah In 2 answers
15. Practical guidance from someone who has placed many founding designers, on when the hire actually pays off and how to run the... Andy Budd Article · Starting Up How to Hire Your First Founding Designer (and Not Regret It Later) Andy Budd In 2 answers
16. Kapoor, a builder at Figma, breaks down the habits that let small teams keep a fast shipping rhythm without collapsing into... Lenny's Newsletter (Mihika Kapoor) Article · 20 min read · Starting Up How to ship like a startup Mihika Kapoor In 2 answers
17. A clear tour of roadmap styles that shows exactly why a feature by date roadmap sets you up to over promise. Torres contrasts... Product Talk Article · ~15 min read · Starting Up Product Roadmaps: How the Best Product Teams Plan for Uncertainty Teresa Torres In 2 answers
18. Cagan makes the sharpest version of the argument: replace a list of features with a small set of outcomes you are trying to... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · ~10 min read · Starting Up The Alternative to Roadmaps Marty Cagan In 2 answers
19. A short, quotable case that the cadence at which you ship defines your company, and that shipping small and often is safer than... Intercom Blog Essay · 8 min read · Starting Up Shipping is your company's heartbeat Darragh Curran, Intercom In 2 answers
20. This gives you the actual checklist a request has to clear before it earns a yes, starting with whether it fits the vision and... Intercom (Des Traynor) Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up Rarely say yes to feature requests Des Traynor In 2 answers
21. Cutler names the exact trap your short answer warns about: shipping feature after feature while nobody measures whether any of... Cutle.fish Essay · Starting Up 12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory John Cutler In 2 answers
22. Explains how to keep every change ready to release at any time, which is the technical backbone of a weekly staging link. It... DORA (Google Cloud) Article · ~10 min read · Starting Up Continuous delivery DORA (Google Cloud) In 2 answers
23. This is the warning label for treating every customer request as a build order. Chen shows how a team can keep shipping... andrewchen.com Essay · Starting Up This is the Product Death Cycle Andrew Chen In 2 answers
24. This is the canonical source for the claim that the customers you already have are far cheaper to keep than the ones a shiny... Harvard Business Review Article · Starting Up The Value of Keeping the Right Customers Amy Gallo In 2 answers

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