Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. An honest account of a launch that stalled at 200 upvotes and ranked below a blender, and what the founder changed to do better... Indie Hackers Article · Starting Up Notes from a failed Product Hunt launch Indie Hackers
2. Product Hunt's own founder, talking to YC about what separates launches that land from ones that don't. He's blunt that a clear... Y Combinator Article · Starting Up Ryan Hoover on Product Hunt's Acquisition and Lessons Learned About Startup Launches with Dalton Caldwell Y Combinator
3. A founder walking through the exact playbook that took his product to #1 Product of the Day, Week, and SaaS Product of the... Tom Dekan Article · Starting Up How we won Product of the Week on Product Hunt Tom Dekan
4. An Indian solo founder's real account of hitting #1 Product of the Day, with the tactic he says mattered most: personal DMs to... Inbox Pirates Article · Starting Up How we won Producthunt #1 Product of The Day As a Solo Founder (And you can too!) Inbox Pirates
5. A direct list of the specific mistakes that sink launches, useful to skim right before you hit submit as a final gut check.... Poindeo Article · Starting Up The Product Hunt Playbook: 10 Mistakes That Will Kill Your Launch Poindeo
6. A working engineer's own account of what actually happened when he posted to Hacker News, including timing, title wording, and... Lucas Costa Essay · Starting Up How to Do a Successful Hacker News Launch Lucas Costa
7. Marc Lou has shipped and launched many small products, and this is his practical rundown of how Show HN posts actually move... Marc Lou Article · Starting Up How to Launch a Startup on Hacker News Marc Lou
8. The companion piece to Marc Lou's Hacker News guide, written from the same practical, ship-it perspective but for Product Hunt... Marc Lou Article · Starting Up How to Launch a Startup on Product Hunt Marc Lou
9. A practical, no-nonsense comparison of what actually differs across these three specific channels: what each one rewards, what... DEV Community Article · Starting Up Indie Dev Launch Strategy: Getting Traction on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit DEV Community
10. The most thorough practical guide we found on organic Reddit specifically, going beyond just avoiding a ban into how to... Karmic Article · Starting Up Reddit Marketing Guide: The Reddit Organic Marketing Guide for Startups and Scale Ups Karmic
11. Jackson uses how bands sell out tour dates, announcing months ahead, building anticipation in stages, as a working template for... justinjackson.ca Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up How to build demand before you launch Justin Jackson
12. A plain, no-jargon explainer of building in public for founders who have heard the term but aren't sure what to actually post... Indie Hackers Article · 8 min read · Starting Up What Is Building in Public? (Explained Simply) Indie Hackers
13. This is the practical rulebook for your actual question. It draws the line between shipping (code deployed) and launching... Lenny's Wiki Article · Starting Up Feature Launches Lenny's Wiki
14. Two former Amazon VPs explain the PR/FAQ method: writing the press release before you build anything, for far more initiatives... St. Martin's Press Book · ~350 pages · Starting Up Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon Colin Bryar, Bill Carr
15. Holiday's core argument is that growth hackers don't bolt marketing onto a finished product, they build it into the product and... Portfolio Book · ~176 pages · Starting Up Growth Hacker Marketing: A Primer on the Future of PR, Marketing, and Advertising Ryan Holiday
16. Michael Seibel lays out a concrete process for shipping as a small team, including deciding on an actual release schedule and... Y Combinator Blog Article · Starting Up How To Build Product As A Small Startup Michael Seibel
17. This gives you a simple tier system, from a major launch down to a minor one, so you can decide how much noise each thing you... Medium Article · Starting Up The Launch Tier System That Transforms Product Teams Aakash Gupta
18. Julian Shapiro argues that growth should be designed into the product itself rather than bolted on afterward, so every new... julian.com Article · Starting Up Startup Handbook: Product-Led Acquisition Julian Shapiro
19. Ries makes the exact distinction our answer rests on: a product launch (making it available) and a marketing launch (making... Startup Lessons Learned (Eric Ries) Essay · 10 min read · Starting Up Don't launch Eric Ries
20. Godin names the exact failure mode our answer warns about: work that could ship but does not, dressed up as caution. It is... Seth's Blog Essay · 3 min read · Starting Up Project Resistance Seth Godin
21. A short, sharp distinction that names your exact problem: meeting a real spec is craft, chasing an ever-shifting ideal is... Seth's Blog Essay · 2 min read · Starting Up Perfect is not the same as perfectionism Seth Godin
22. Clear separates what's optimal from what's actually needed to begin, which is useful when you keep waiting for the landing page... jamesclear.com Essay · 6 min read · Starting Up The Power of Imperfect Starts James Clear
23. 37signals' own internal rules for when something is done enough to ship, written by a team that has shipped products for over... Basecamp Article · Starting Up Seven Shipping Principles Basecamp
24. This explains, with the classic committee-and-bikeshed example, exactly why founders fuss over fonts and micro-copy instead of... Effectiviology Article · Starting Up Bikeshedding and the Law of Triviality: Why People Focus on Minor Issues Effectiviology

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