Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Jen Abel has coached hundreds of early-stage founders through their first enterprise deals, and this episode is unusually... Lenny's Podcast, with Jen Abel Podcast · Starting Up "Sell the alpha, not the feature": The enterprise sales playbook for $1M to $10M ARR Jen Abel
2. A direct answer to a founder asking almost exactly your question. Lemkin's fix is blunt: fewer, better-targeted emails to the... SaaStr Article · Starting Up Dear SaaStr: Cold Emails Are Not Working for My B2B SaaS Startup. What Am I Doing Wrong? Jason Lemkin
3. Video · Starting Up I Sent 10 Million Cold Emails - These 5 Scripts Made the Most Alex Berman
4. Written from the receiving end by someone who gets a lot of cold email, this lays out exactly what makes an ask easy to say yes... Kalzumeus Software Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up Standing Invitation Patrick McKenzie (patio11)
5. Direct and specific about the ask problem: it points out that asking to 'jump on a call' in the very first email is one of the... Hunter.io Blog Article · 8 min read · Starting Up 8 Cold Email Tips to Improve Your Next Campaign Hunter.io Blog
6. A first-person account of what actually happened across thousands of sends, rather than a generic best-practices list. Useful... Hunter.io Blog Article · 9 min read · Starting Up 5 Lessons I Learned After Sending 12K Cold Emails Irina Maltseva
7. Video · ~12 min · Starting Up How to Write Emails That Get Opened Ramit Sethi
8. An investor walks through, line by line, the actual cold email that got him to say yes to what became a unicorn investment.... The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) Podcast · ~45 min · Starting Up The Contentful Memo: Point Nine's Christoph Janz on the Cold Email That Led to a Unicorn Investment Harry Stebbings
9. The most complete single book on cold email as a repeatable system, from a writer who built his own business almost entirely on... Amazon Book · ~200 pages · Starting Up Cold Email Manifesto: How to Contact Anyone, Make More Sales, and Take Your Company to the Next Level Alex Berman, Robert Indries
10. This is a tactical playbook for turning a handful of happy customers into a channel of their own: reference calls, case... First Round Review Article · Starting Up The Startup's Guide to Customer Advocacy: How to Get Closer to Your Champions Kalina Bryant
11. This is the real time data point behind the ceiling described in the short answer, straight from a community of SaaS founders... SaaStr Article · Starting Up Does Outbound Still Work? 49% Of You Say No Jason Lemkin
12. Written in 1999, this book named the exact tension you are living through: interruption based outreach gets harder every year... Amazon Book · Starting Up Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers Seth Godin
13. Barry built ConvertKit's growth almost entirely on flywheels, content, community, and audience, rather than outbound, and this... nathanbarry.com Essay · Starting Up Creator Flywheels: The Operating System for Your Business Nathan Barry
14. Sheridan's pool company went from near bankruptcy to a category leader by answering every question a buyer might have in public... marcussheridan.com Book · Starting Up They Ask, You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today's Digital Consumer Marcus Sheridan
15. This is a VC's field guide to the small community half of the short answer: what makes a founder built community actually drive... Bessemer Venture Partners Essay · Starting Up Five laws for community-led growth Bessemer Venture Partners
16. This gives you the actual words to use once you decide to ask happy customers for referrals, timed to the moment right after a... HubSpot Template · Starting Up How to ask for a referral from a client (+ best email templates) HubSpot
17. Warm channels run on proof, and this is the simplest tool for collecting video and text testimonials from customers without... Testimonial.to Tool · Starting Up Testimonial.to Testimonial.to
18. Zerodha reached crores of customers in India without ever running an ad or an outbound campaign, growing almost entirely on... Indian Startup News Article · Starting Up 'Customer love is a real superpower for us': Nithin Kamath on how Zerodha grew without advertising Indian Startup News
19. Dozens of founders answer in the comments with what actually worked for them, and cold email is a minority answer among stories... Hacker News Thread · Starting Up Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers? Hacker News
20. Written for founders who would rather be building product than selling, this is a grounded guide to identifying and... Y Combinator Article · Starting Up Sales Advice for Technical Founders Y Combinator
21. Lemkin has watched thousands of B2B SaaS companies try outbound and this piece is his blunt verdict: it works, but only when it... SaaStr Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Outbound Always Works. If You Do It Right. And You Put In The Time. Jason Lemkin
22. Use these as a starting structure, not a script to copy and paste to a thousand people, since that second use is exactly the... HubSpot Template · 15 min read · Starting Up 22 Best B2B Cold Email Templates to Get Your Leads' Attention HubSpot
23. A concise reference sheet that names the exact failure modes this question is about: leading questions like wouldn't you agree... Harvard Business School, Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Article · 5 min read · Starting Up Customer Discovery Basics Harvard Business School, Rock Center for Entrepreneurship
24. Alvarez names the specific mistakes founders make even after reading the theory: multi part questions that let people dodge the... cindyalvarez.com Essay · 8 min read · Starting Up 5 Common Customer Development Mistakes Cindy Alvarez

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