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Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

The essays, videos, podcasts, books and tools behind every answer across eChai's hubs, from starting up to go-to-market, D2C, founder money and AI, each with a note on why it is here.

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

  1. How to encode your design decisions as rules an AI agent can actually consume. designsystemscollective.com Article · How Founders Use AI Design systems for the vibe-coding era Anna Arteeva (Design Systems Collective)
  2. A tooling map for keeping AI output consistent across every screen. intodesignsystems.com Guide · How Founders Use AI The vibe coding stack for design systems, plus 15 resources Into Design Systems
  3. A ready template for documenting component decisions your AI agent cannot infer. designmd.directory Guide · How Founders Use AI DESIGN.md for shadcn/ui DesignMD Directory
  4. The strategic argument for why sameness is now a product risk, not just an aesthetic one. medium.com Article · How Founders Use AI AI is turning every new app into the same boring product Aakash Gupta
  5. The investor view: when execution is commoditized, distinct design is what differentiates. thevccorner.com Article · How Founders Use AI Taste is the new moat and design decides which startups survive The VC Corner
  6. How to actually train taste: exposure, iteration, and caring what good feels like. medium.com Article · How Founders Use AI Taste is the only moat: surviving the AI flood Eric M. De Castro
  7. The sharpest strategic interview on where human designers fit as AI eats production work. stratechery.com Article · How Founders Use AI An interview with Figma CEO Dylan Field about design and AI Stratechery (Ben Thompson)
  8. Two people who shaped startup design culture on what founders should still own. figma.com Article · How Founders Use AI Dylan Field and Garry Tan on design, AI, and the power of locking in Figma
  9. Argues AI raises the bar for the hire: easier making means knowing what to make matters more. medium.com Article · How Founders Use AI The founding designer: hiring your first designer in the age of AI Sunit Singh
  10. Why AI startups in particular win by making design a day-one strategic seat. thenextweb.com Article · How Founders Use AI Tingyu Su on treating the founding designer as a strategic hire The Next Web
  11. Rigorous, hype-free assessment of what AI design tools still cannot do. nngroup.com Article · How Founders Use AI AI design tools are marginally better: status update Nielsen Norman Group
  12. A designer's-side view that helps founders understand what they are actually buying when they hire. benvsthemachine.substack.com Article · How Founders Use AI The prototype trap: how designers are accidentally undermining themselves on AI Ben (Ben vs The Machine)
  13. A product-led lens on when taste needs a full-time owner. productled.com Article · How Founders Use AI Taste is the new moat: building in the age of AI with Typeform ProductLed
  14. The market context for why design hires got more strategic, not obsolete. forbes.com Article · How Founders Use AI Why taste is Silicon Valley's new competitive moat Forbes (Josipa Majic)
  15. Survey-backed look at which early hires AI actually displaces (hint: not judgment roles). mercury.com Article · How Founders Use AI How AI is influencing early roles at startups Mercury
  16. Investor guidance on sequencing hires when AI covers the early design work. hsgcap.com Article · How Founders Use AI How to build your startup team in the age of AI HSG
  17. The skeptical rebuttal, useful before you overpay for 'taste' in a hire. medium.com Article · How Founders Use AI Taste is the new moat, and that's the problem Ruiqi Zhou
  18. The most engineering-credible checklist for hardening an AI-built app. stack.convex.dev Guide · How Founders Use AI 6 steps before taking your vibe-coded app to production Convex
  19. A full workflow that builds production discipline in from the first prompt. sitepoint.com Guide · How Founders Use AI Production vibe coding workflow: from prompt to deploy SitePoint
  20. Draws the prototype-versus-production line precisely, then walks the gap. vibengineer.io Article · How Founders Use AI Vibe coded prototype to production: how to harden the demo Vibengineer
  21. A time-boxed two-week plan if you need a launch date, not a philosophy. appstuck.com Guide · How Founders Use AI Vibe coded to production: the 14-day playbook AppStuck
  22. A sober framework for deciding rebuild versus harden. mindstudio.ai Article · How Founders Use AI Is vibe coding good enough for production apps? MindStudio
  23. First-party account of the year vibe-coded apps leaked data, and the safer defaults that followed. supabase.com Article · How Founders Use AI Supabase security retro: 2025 Supabase
  24. The cautionary tale every Lovable and Bolt builder should read before launch. byteiota.com Article · How Founders Use AI Supabase security flaw: 170+ apps exposed by missing RLS byteiota

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The hubs

Starting Up Find an idea, validate it, build, and land your first customers. 1046 questions GTM Go-to-market, from breaking in to how the best teams do it. 352 questions D2C Building a direct-to-consumer brand, India-first. 482 questions Wealth Paying yourself, ESOPs, secondaries, and de-risking founder wealth. 154 questions How Founders Use AI How founders actually put AI to work, mapped topic by topic. 278 questions Glossary Plain-language definitions of the startup and VC terms you'll hit. 390 terms
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