Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. This is a reference document more than a read: thirty concrete before and after examples of leading questions rewritten into... CXL Article · 15 minute read · Starting Up Leading Questions: Definition, Types and 30 Examples CXL
2. This walks through Jobs to Be Done interviewing, which is built entirely around reconstructing a real past decision rather than... CXL Article · 18 minute read · Starting Up Customer Interviews: How to Use the Jobs-to-Be-Done Framework CXL
3. This is the academic name and definition for exactly the failure mode in the question: people systematically overstate what... Catalog of Bias Article · 3 minute read · Starting Up Hypothetical bias Catalog of Bias
4. Christensen tells the milkshake story himself: McDonald's asked customers directly how to improve the milkshake and got useless... HBR IdeaCast Podcast · about 35 minutes · Starting Up The Jobs to Be Done Theory of Innovation Clayton Christensen
5. A short, practical rewrite guide showing three specific question types to swap in for what do you want, each anchored to... Medium Essay · 5 minute read · Starting Up Never Ask What They Want: 3 Better Questions to Ask in User Interviews Chuck Liu
6. Moesta invented the 'switch interview' technique and explains here how to reconstruct the exact moment a customer decided to... The SaaS Podcast Podcast · ~50 min · Starting Up 10 Customer Interviews That Reveal Why People Really Buy Omer Khan, Bob Moesta
7. Hearing The Mom Test's author talk through his own framework out loud fills in gaps the book leaves implicit, especially around... The SaaS Podcast Podcast · ~40 min · Starting Up Customer Acquisition Startup Mistakes That Kill Your Idea Omer Khan, Rob Fitzpatrick
8. Garbugli, a three-time B2B founder, lays out the actual questions to ask about business drivers, pain intensity, and who owns... Lean Startup Digest (Medium) Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up B2B Customer Discovery Interview Questions: A Master List Etienne Garbugli
9. If you're selling to businesses rather than consumers, this book adapts customer development to the messier reality of... leanb2bbook.com Book · ~280 pages · Starting Up Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want Etienne Garbugli
10. Recruiting is often the actual hard part of this problem, not the conversation itself. This gives you the tactics NN/g uses... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 20 min read · Starting Up How to Recruit Participants for Usability Studies Nielsen Norman Group
11. A short, practical answer to the recruitment problem this question is really asking about: where do I even find these people.... Lean Startup Co. Article · 8 min read · Starting Up We Can't Find Customers to Interview. Now What? Lean Startup Co.
12. One of India's better-known early-stage VCs interviews the author of Jobs to Be Done on why people 'hire' a product, which... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~40 min · Starting Up Stephen Wunker, MD New Markets Advisors, on Building Solutions That Help Your Customers Get Things Done Shripati Acharya, Stephen Wunker
13. Lemkin lays out a specific, staged interview count for B2B SaaS founders: the first five to map the space, the next five to... SaaStr Article · ~10 min read · Starting Up Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don't Forget the 20 Interview Rule Jason Lemkin
14. Portigal has run professional research interviews for over 25 years, and this book is the deeper craft manual once you have the... portigal.com Book · Starting Up Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights Steve Portigal
15. Hansen, a bootstrapped SaaS founder herself, talks through the practical mechanics of running interviews as one more task in an... Startups For The Rest Of Us Podcast · Starting Up Mastering Customer Interviews with Michele Hansen Rob Walling with Michele Hansen
16. This is a real thread of solo and small team founders admitting the exact fear in your question, and working through it... Indie Hackers Thread · Starting Up I'm afraid to talk to customers/prospects, and it's holding me back Indie Hackers
17. A free AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes your calls so you are not scrambling to write notes while also... Fathom Tool · Starting Up Fathom Fathom
18. A ready made, Mom Test style script you can use as is instead of writing your own from scratch, which removes the improvising... Ideaproof Template · Starting Up Customer Interview Script Template Ideaproof
19. Blank's own blog distills the argument from his book into a short, free read: most startups don't fail on execution, they fail... steveblank.com Essay · Starting Up The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution Steve Blank
20. A pre-seed fund's practical checklist for what real validation looks like before you write code, insisting on quantified... Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons) Article · Starting Up How to Validate Your Startup With Customers Before Building Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons)
21. A free one page canvas built specifically to map what someone was doing before your product, their old solution or workaround,... LeanStack Template · Starting Up The Customer Forces Canvas (Updated) Ash Maurya
22. A long comment thread of founders and operators arguing through the vitamin versus painkiller framing with their own real... Hacker News Thread · Starting Up Vitamin vs painkiller discussion thread Hacker News
23. Built around the well known CB Insights statistic, this piece is refreshingly concrete about what evidence to look for, an... The VC Lens Essay · Starting Up 42% of Startups Fail Due to No Real Market Need, Here's How to Solve That Sayanee Bhowmik
24. A roundup of concrete advice from Indian investors and mentors, and the standout point for this question is direct: founders... YourStory Article · Starting Up Idea Validation: 20 Startup Tips From the TiE Bangalore Mentor Clinic YourStory

Show the next 24