Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Newport diagnoses exactly why distributed teams end up always waiting on the founder: the hyperactive hive mind of ad hoc Slack... calnewport.com Essay · 12 min read · Starting Up On Productivity and Remote Work Cal Newport
2. This is the exact scene you are dreading, in Indian parents' own words. Vineeta Singh (SUGAR) turned down a lucrative offer and... Humans of Bombay Article · 8 min read · Starting Up 5 Indian startup stories: founders who turned down the safe job and faced the family they had to answer to Humans of Bombay
3. Kamath built Zerodha with zero VC, so his advice is un-hyped and unusually honest for an Indian founder of his stature. He blew... nithinkamath.me Essay · Varies (essay collection) · Starting Up Nithin Kamath: musings on risk, quitting, and the thin line between passion and foolishness Nithin Kamath
4. This is the clearest naming of the exact trap in the question: Gorman, a therapist who works with founders, calls it identity... Ingmar Gorman (psychotherapist for entrepreneurs) Article · 10 min read · Starting Up When the Startup Becomes You: Burnout, Founders' Identity, and Therapy for Entrepreneurs Ingmar Gorman, PhD
5. Colonna is the VC-turned-coach founders actually trust on this, and here he tells it from the inside: after losing his... On Being Podcast · 51 min listen (full transcript available) · Starting Up Can You Really Bring Your Whole Self to Work? (Jerry Colonna) Jerry Colonna, interviewed by Krista Tippett
6. This is the piece that proves burnout is an operations problem, not a mood. Saxena's line is the whole distinction you need:... First Round Review Article · 14 min read · Starting Up Practical Frameworks for Beating Burnout Roli Saxena (interviewed by First Round Review)
7. The rare founder account of hitting the wall and recovering without stepping away from the company. El-Hage burned out in years... First Round Review Podcast · 30 min read · Starting Up The First-Time Founder's Guide to Learning Everything the Hard Way Steve El-Hage, founder and CEO of Drop
8. India's most respected bootstrapped founder built the exact week-level defenses this answer argues for, and runs a company of... Business Today Article · 5 min read · Starting Up Zerodha's Nithin Kamath stops all work chats after 6 pm; here's why Business Today staff, reporting Nithin Kamath
9. This is a founder who built India's largest broker while being openly, publicly pessimistic about his own business for years,... Zerodha (Z-Connect) Essay · ~8 min read · Starting Up 15 years of Zerodha: The risk crystallises Nithin Kamath
10. This is the scheduled brutal-honesty ritual, made concrete enough to actually run. You book a 60 to 90 minute session, tell the... stephenlynch.net Article · ~7 min read · Starting Up How to Conduct a Premortem Stephen Lynch
11. An unusually honest first-person autopsy of a co-founder split, and it names the warning signs our answer says to catch early.... yirenlu.com Essay · ~10 min read · Starting Up My co-founder and I broke up. Here's a post-mortem. Yiren Lu
12. A well-known Indian founder (Nearbuy, then a huge creator following) writes plainly about the one move that repairs a... Inc42 Article · ~7 min read · Starting Up The Founder's Role: Conflict Resolution Ankur Warikoo
13. Horowitz names the exact thing that happens to your head in a crisis: the 3am spiral, food losing its taste, self-doubt... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up The Struggle Ben Horowitz
14. This is what a calm founder looks like staring at his own existential risk. Kamath writes, plainly and in public, that over 80... Nithin Kamath (Substack) Essay · 6 min read · Starting Up Concentration risk in broking business Nithin Kamath
15. This is the practical answer to 'define your own two or three metrics.' Tabb splits numbers into vanity metrics (downloads,... First Round Review Article · Medium read (about 15 min) · Starting Up I'm Sorry, But Those Are Vanity Metrics Lloyd Tabb (via First Round Review)
16. Buechler was Y Combinator's in-house founder coach and therapist, so this is the rare piece written by someone who has sat... Scale Yourself (Amy Buechler) Article · 10 min read · Starting Up The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy (for Founders) Amy Buechler
17. Jerry Colonna was a top-tier VC before he became the coach founders call when the company is doing fine but they are not.... Reboot.io Tool · Site plus podcast archive · Starting Up Reboot: CEO Coaching and the Emotional Side of Leadership (Jerry Colonna) Jerry Colonna
18. This is one of the earliest honest pieces from inside the Indian startup ecosystem to name founder depression out loud, with... YourStory Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Is Depression a Well-Guarded Secret in the Startup World? YourStory
19. Most founders wave around 'strong opinions loosely held' as cover for never actually updating. Chin, writing from running his... Commoncog Essay · ~12 min read · Starting Up 'Strong Opinions, Weakly Held' Doesn't Work That Well Cedric Chin
20. Feld, a founder and investor who has sat through decades of these conversations, names the trap: 'strong opinions loosely held'... Feld Thoughts Essay · ~5 min read · Starting Up Bad Entrepreneurial Cliches: Strong Opinions Loosely Held Brad Feld
21. A concrete India case of a founder swallowing his own instinct. Kamath started Zerodha believing 'more people solve more... Business Today Article · ~4 min read · Starting Up Nithin Kamath reveals why Zerodha deliberately stayed a 1,000-person company Business Today
22. It puts the double standard in real founders' own words: Ahana Gautam (Open Secret) told an investor who called her 'too... Forbes India Article · 12 min read · Starting Up This Is Me: Indian Women Founders Are Taking Up Space By Being Unapologetic Forbes India Staff
23. Sairee Chahal built SHEROES because she saw the exact load you are carrying: a network where women talk about in-laws,... Inc42 Article · 15 min read · Starting Up Sairee Chahal: The SHEROES Story And Women Entrepreneurs In India Inc42 (interview with Sairee Chahal)
24. This is the room the answer tells you to find. SheThePeople has run a women-founder community for over a decade (70,000+ women... SheThePeople Tool · Recurring community + annual summit · Starting Up She Leads India: SheThePeople's Women Founder Community and Summit Shaili Chopra, SheThePeople

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