Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. To spot what is newly possible you need to know what the models can suddenly do that they could not before, and this essay maps... Sequoia Capital Essay · 18 min read · Starting Up Generative AI's Act o1: The Reasoning Era Begins Sonya Huang and Pat Grady
2. The clearest argument that idea generation is a muscle, not a gift. Altucher's practice, write ten ideas a day until it becomes... James Altucher Essay · 15 min read · Starting Up The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine James Altucher
3. A working set of prompts that push your thinking to extremes to shake loose non-obvious ideas. When your list feels stale or... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Article · 15 min read · Starting Up Extreme brainstorming questions to trigger new, better ideas Jason Cohen
4. A tool that scans forums, search trends, and communities to surface pre-researched idea candidates, with a free idea of the... IdeaBrowser (Greg Isenberg) Tool · Web tool · Starting Up IdeaBrowser Greg Isenberg
5. This is the practical mechanics of exactly the habit in our answer: keep a running list of daily annoyances and workarounds,... Founder's Guide Article · 10 min read · Starting Up The Problem List Method: business ideas from real daily frustrations Founder's Guide
6. A short, focused piece on the single skill our answer is built around: noticing what everyone else walks past. It names the... Start as Sprout Article · 8 min read · Starting Up The Quiet Skill of Noticing Problems Start as Sprout
7. This is the counterweight to the venture scale market advice: proof that a small market can be a great business if you are... Rob Walling Essay · Starting Up The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping Rob Walling
8. Speaks directly to the trap of confusing a giant TAM number with a real business. It explains why investors discount inflated... HSBC Innovation Banking Article · Starting Up Beyond the TAM Slide: What Investors Really Want HSBC Innovation Banking
9. This is the sharpest short essay on why a naive market number lies to you. Evans shows that a new product can either shrink a... Benedict Evans Essay · about 1,200 words · Starting Up Ways to Think About Market Size Benedict Evans
10. This is YC's curated shelf of talks and essays filtered to market size, so you get partner-level guidance in one place instead... Y Combinator Course · Starting Up YC Startup Library: Market Size collection Y Combinator
11. Kamps has seen more market-size slides than almost anyone and calls out the exact failures founders repeat, including claiming... TechCrunch Article · Starting Up I Reviewed 1,000+ Pitch Decks. These Are the Most Common Mistakes Haje Jan Kamps
12. Video · 55 min · Starting Up Balaji Srinivasan on Navigating the Idea Maze and Finding a Co-Founder Balaji Srinivasan
13. Video · 75 min · Starting Up Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital: Target Big Markets Don Valentine
14. This is the deep dive on why the 'next 200 million' users are real but hard to monetize, which is exactly the trap that... sajithpai.com Essay · 20 min read · Starting Up Vernacular Apps, the English Language Premium, and Monetising the Next 200 Million Sajith Pai
15. Redseer gives you an independent view of the internet-to-transacting funnel to cross-check Blume's household numbers. It... Redseer Strategy Consultants Article · 10 min read · Starting Up India's Internet Consumers (700 Mn+ Digital Consumer Funnel) Mukesh Kumar, Redseer
16. This long, unhurried conversation is the best audio explanation of the three Indias and why Indian consumer markets behave the... The Seen and the Unseen Podcast · 3 hr · Starting Up A Venture Capitalist Looks at the World (Sajith Pai) Amit Varma with Sajith Pai
17. An economist presses Pai on the data behind India1, India2, India3, so you hear the assumptions get stress-tested. It is useful... Ideas of India, Mercatus Center Podcast · 1 hr 30 min · Starting Up Sajith Pai on India's Digital Divides Shruti Rajagopalan with Sajith Pai
18. The original short essay that named the wedge, the sharp entry point our short answer is really about. Dixon explains how to... Chris Dixon (cdixon.org) Essay · 8 min read · Starting Up The Thin Edge of the Wedge Strategy Chris Dixon
19. Rachitsky turns the wedge from a slogan into a decision, with worked examples like Twilio, Airbnb, and Amazon entering big... Lenny Rachitsky, Lenny's Newsletter Article · 18 min read · Starting Up Picking a Wedge Lenny Rachitsky
20. A practical companion to Dixon and Rachitsky, focused on choosing the exact first customer segment when the broader market is... Nathan Baschez, Every (every.to) Article · 15 min read · Starting Up The Market Wedge: How to Pick Your Initial Market Nathan Baschez, Eric Thompson
21. A structured spreadsheet that makes you fill in the number of target customers, your unit economics, and your serviceable and... Scalepath Template · Spreadsheet · Starting Up Free Bottoms-Up TAM Template Scalepath
22. A founder-facing guide that ties market sizing to the question investors are really asking, and warns against describing only... 22nd Century Frontier Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up How Big Can This Get? A Founder's Guide to Market Sizing Petar Dimov
23. Video · ~90 min · Starting Up Startup Secrets: Building a Value Proposition Michael Skok
24. Blank separates a new market, where customers do something they could not before, from existing and resegmented markets, and... Inc. Article · ~8 min read · Starting Up Defining New Markets Steve Blank

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