Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Video · 20 min · Starting Up How To Keep Your Users Y Combinator Startup School (YouTube)
2. The Naukri.com founder, using Zomato as the case study, makes the same case as our answer from an Indian boardroom: valuation... Forbes India Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Startups Must Move Away From Vanity Metrics Sanjeev Bikhchandani
3. Ivan Zhao talks in detail about the years Notion nearly died, including a full technical rewrite after the first version... Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · 1 hour 12 minutes · Starting Up Notion's lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder) Ivan Zhao, hosted by Lenny Rachitsky
4. Rand Fishkin writes with total candor about the mistakes, product failures, and eventual founder exit that shaped Moz, then... Penguin Random House Book · Starting Up Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World Rand Fishkin
5. A tight, practical checklist for the specific call type this question is about: the first real conversation with a prospect. It... Gong Article · ~8 min read · Starting Up 8 Things to Consider Before Your Next Discovery Call Gong Labs
6. Jason Lemkin makes the case that the person who ghosted you almost never made a conscious decision to ignore you, they just got... SaaStr Article · Starting Up VCs Don't Really Ghost You. They are Just Prospects. Treat Them as Such. Jason Lemkin
7. Video · Starting Up Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | Talks at Google Chris Voss
8. A short, concrete story from Steli Efti about following up with a single unresponsive investor 48 times before finally getting... LinkedIn Article · Starting Up How I followed up with an investor 48 times Steli Efti
9. Gong analyzed tens of thousands of real sales calls and found that deals which felt like sure things often died quietly because... Gong Article · Starting Up Why Deals Fail to Close and How to Succeed Next Time Gong
10. A practical reference you can keep open during calls: real objections, like it's too expensive or I need to think about it,... HubSpot Article · Starting Up Objection Handling: 44 Common Sales Objections & How to Respond Mark Burdon
11. Two YC partners talk plainly about why founders who avoid rejection end up avoiding their customers altogether, and why the... Y Combinator Video · Starting Up Dalton & Michael: Successful founders are OK with rejection Y Combinator
12. 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
13. Video · about 30 min · Starting Up The Cold Email Formula That Made Over $1,000,000 with Sam Parr Sam Parr
14. 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
15. 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
16. When you need the actual words for the same-day recap email, this gives you five ready structures for different types of calls,... HubSpot Template · 8 min read · Starting Up 5 Recap Email Templates to Use After Connect, Discovery, and Demo Calls HubSpot
17. 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
18. 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
19. 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
20. 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
21. 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
22. UPI Autopay lets you set up a recurring mandate on a customer's account so a subscription or installment debits automatically... Razorpay Tool · Starting Up UPI Autopay | Razorpay Razorpay
23. 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)
24. 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

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