Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. The discipline half of the answer. When cash is tight the reflex is to over-give equity to close the gap, and this piece pushes... First Round Review Article · 20 min read · Starting Up What Early Stage Founders Should Know About Comp: The Rules To Break (And A Few You Should Actually Follow) Kaitlyn Knopp (Pequity), via First Round Review In 2 answers
2. Written by PostHog's operations lead, this is the sharpest piece on hiring for judgment over resume. Its core claim, attributes... PostHog Article · 10 min read · Starting Up Making your first startup ops hire: what founders should look for Charles Cook In 2 answers
3. The answer says over-invest in one in-person offsite early to build the trust Slack can't, and this is the concrete agenda for... First Round Review Article · 18 min read · Starting Up Use This Startup's Playbook for Running Impactful Virtual Offsites First Round Review (with the Sitka team) In 2 answers
4. Where the ClearTax piece is the hiring checklist, this Razorpay Rize guide gives you the whole compliance surface your first... Razorpay Rize Article · 15 min read · Starting Up Startup Compliance Guide: What Every Founder Should Know Razorpay Rize In 2 answers
5. Lopp ran People Ops at Palantir and Pinterest, and his one non-negotiable rule is the one that saves a five-person team: a... First Round Review Article · 18 min read · Starting Up The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: How to Fire Someone Michael Lopp (Rands) In 2 answers
6. Dalgaard, who founded SuccessFactors and sold it to SAP for 3.7 billion dollars, makes the case you need to actually pull the... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · 12 min read · Starting Up It's Never Too Early to Fire Lars Dalgaard In 2 answers
7. This is your ready-made behavioral question bank, built around seven traits (grit, rigor, impact, teamwork, ownership,... First Round Review Article · 18 min read · Starting Up Hire a Top Performer Every Time with These Interview Questions First Round Review (featuring Kristen Hamilton, Koru) In 2 answers
8. Rachitsky ran 50-plus reviews at Airbnb and turned it into a Prepare, Deliver, Follow-up system he explicitly says is for... First Round Review Article · 20 min read · Starting Up The Power of Performance Reviews: Use This System to Become a Better Manager Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
9. This is the founder-sized version of Radical Candor: a four-step order of operations (Get, Give, Gauge, Encourage) that starts... Radical Candor Article · 15 min read · Starting Up How to Get and Give Feedback Using the Radical Candor Order of Operations Kim Scott (Radical Candor team) In 2 answers
10. This is the runway-and-plan-B ammunition you can literally quote to your parents. Adam Grant's research found founders who kept... tampham.co Article · 6 min read · Starting Up Don't quit your job to start a business (Adam Grant's research on de-risking the bet) Adam Grant (research), summarized In 2 answers
11. This is the Indian version of the exact spiral the question is about, in founders' own words. Purushartha Saini (IIT Bombay,... Entrepreneur India Article · 9 min read · Starting Up Depression, Fear, Failure & Isolation: The Other Side Of Entrepreneurship Entrepreneur India staff (with Purushartha Saini, Jyoti Agarwal, Chaitanya Ramalingegowda) In 2 answers
12. This is the exact playbook behind our answer. Executive coach Rachel Lockett prescribes a cadence of relationship-only meetings... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read · Starting Up Renew Your Co-Founder Vows, and Other Tactics for Strengthening the Most Important Relationship in Your Startup Rachel Lockett (via First Round Review) In 2 answers
13. Graham's answer to "how do I plan when I can't know what's coming" is to stop treating the future as knowable at all. He argues... paulgraham.com Essay · ~10 min read · Starting Up How to Be an Expert in a Changing World Paul Graham In 2 answers
14. This is the honest first-hand account, not a tactical post-mortem. Munson describes meditating in the corner of his office... Matt Munson (CEO, Twenty20) Essay · 12 min read · Starting Up My Journey Through Founder Depression Matt Munson In 2 answers
15. Newport takes Graham's idea and turns it into a schedule you can actually run. He lays out the moderate version (block... calnewport.com Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Why Are Maker Schedules So Rare? Cal Newport In 2 answers
16. The CEO of Buffer wrote this in the first person after he actually crashed: co-founder split, layoffs, a CTO departure, all... Buffer Essay · 6 min read · Starting Up My Experience with Burnout as a Startup Founder Joel Gascoigne In 2 answers
17. Three founders describe, in their own words, exactly how they handled investors through a pivot, and the contrast is the... Mercury blog Article · 12 min read · Starting Up 3 founders on their experience pivoting their companies Mercury (Meghan Gunn), featuring Dave Rogenmoser (Jasper), Andres Klaric (Fuse), Hillary Lin (Curio) In 2 answers
18. This is the operator's manual for running an acqui-hire or asset sale when you are almost out of cash, which is exactly the... Kruze Consulting Article · 12 min read · Starting Up What is an Acqui-Hire? A Startup Guide Healy Jones, Kruze Consulting In 2 answers
19. This is the clearest breakdown of where the money and the IP actually go in an asset sale versus a wind-down, so you can see... Heavybit Article · 14 min read · Starting Up The Acqui-Hire Is No Longer a Distress Sale Heavybit In 2 answers
20. Bentinck ran a talent investor and watched founders wave signed LOIs as proof, then watched those same customers walk. Her... Entrepreneurs First Essay · 7 min read · Starting Up The Letter of Intent Fallacy Alice Bentinck In 2 answers
21. Chargebee's Chennai founders made the exact mistake this question warns against: they told themselves the product needed more... Mixergy Podcast · 60 min listen · Starting Up Chargebee with Krish Subramanian (Mixergy interview) Andrew Warner with Krish Subramanian In 2 answers
22. The concrete India checklist for looking legitimate to a larger client without incorporating a fake team. It spells out the... Karbon Card Article · 12 min read · Starting Up Best Business Structure for Freelancers and Solo Founders in India Karbon Card In 2 answers
23. A solo founder does not need a hundred contacts, they need four or five people they can be candid with and a repeatable way to... First Round Review Article · ~3,500 words, 15 min read · Starting Up Advice is More Important, and Overwhelming, Than Ever. Here's How Founders Can Cut Through the Noise First Round Review In 2 answers
24. This is the exact trial-before-you-quit framework your answer prescribes, written by someone who ran it: Lin dated six... First Round Review Article · 20 min read · Starting Up The Founder Dating Playbook: The Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder Gloria Lin In 2 answers

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