Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. A validation walkthrough written for the Indian context, covering landing pages, coming soon fake doors, and pre orders with... Salaah School of Startups Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up How to Validate Your Startup Idea in India Salaah School of Startups
2. The most common way founders fool themselves about PMF is believing the next feature will fix weak retention. Chen shows with... andrewchen.com Essay · ~1,800 words · Starting Up The Next Feature Fallacy Andrew Chen
3. Olsen gives you a full framework (the Product-Market Fit Pyramid) for getting to fit deliberately rather than by luck: target... Dan Olsen (dan-olsen.com) Book · ~336 pages · Starting Up The Lean Product Playbook Dan Olsen
4. Blank widens pivot beyond product to any of the nine parts of your business model, which helps you find the one big thing to... steveblank.com (Steve Blank) Essay · ~8 min read · Starting Up Do Pivots Matter? (What's a Pivot?) Steve Blank
5. A concrete, step-by-step account of collecting real pre-sale money before building, from a founder who actually did it. Unlike... Indie Hackers Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up $1,400 in pre-sales, step by step Indie Hackers community
6. A head-on comparison of the exact question you are asking, useful as an orientation before the deeper resources. It draws out... Bundl Article · 12 min read · Starting Up B2B vs B2C Venture Validation: Key Differences Bundl
7. Aulet, who runs MIT's entrepreneurship center, lays out how to do primary research properly: observe, listen, and interact with... VentureWell (Bill Aulet, MIT) Article · medium read · Starting Up A Practical Guide to Primary Market Research Bill Aulet
8. Written by an investor who founded and sold a marketplace himself, this is a structured handbook covering business models,... Version One Ventures Article · ~45 min read · Starting Up A Guide to Marketplaces Boris Wertz and Angela Tran
9. Grinda has backed over a thousand marketplaces, and his blunt take is that roughly 95 percent are demand constrained, not... Fabrice Grinda Essay · ~30 min read · Starting Up Lessons Learned Building Online Marketplaces Fabrice Grinda
10. Udemy's cofounder explains, with real numbers, how they hand recruited supply when cold calls failed, even creating a course... The Hustle Article · ~15 min read · Starting Up How Udemy Found Their First 1,000 Instructors Sam Parr
11. Kromatic works with corporate and startup teams on lean experiments, and this piece is precise about the difference and the... Kromatic Article · Starting Up Wizard of Oz Prototyping vs. Concierge Test Kromatic
12. A practical walkthrough of when a concierge MVP is the right fit, when it is not, and how to actually run one. It is helpful... Upsilon Article · Starting Up What Is a Concierge MVP and When to Use It Upsilon
13. The reference book on interview craft itself: how to build rapport, ask follow ups, and manage your own bias in the room.... Rosenfeld Media Book · 248 pages · Starting Up Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd Edition) Steve Portigal
14. A direct answer to the question every founder types into search: what should I actually ask. Torres argues for throwing away... Product Talk Article · 12 min read · Starting Up Ask Teresa: What Are the Best Customer Interview Questions? Teresa Torres
15. A founder story about doing customer research so carefully that you learn things you did not want to hear. It shows what... First Round Review Article · 20 min read · Starting Up Webflow's Path to Product-Market Fit: Lessons on Rigorous Customer Empathy First Round Review
16. A short, plain piece that names the exact trap in this question: a curiosity click reads as demand when it is not. It gives... saasvalidation.tech Article · Starting Up Pre-launch waitlists measure curiosity, not intent saasvalidation.tech
17. A breakdown of how Superhuman turned a waitlist into a filter using onboarding calls, surveys, and referral gating, so joining... Waitlister Article · Starting Up Superhuman's Waitlist Case Study: 180K Users at $30/Month Waitlister
18. Kamath spells out a hard Indian truth: services that Americans pay a premium for, Indians expect for free, so the same feature... Business Today Article · Starting Up Robinhood charges for speed, India gives it free: Nithin Kamath drops a brutal reality check Nithin Kamath (via Business Today)
19. Pike weighs pre-selling honestly, including when a signed commitment truly validates demand and when it does not fit your... Allen Pike Essay · Starting Up Sell First, or Build First? Allen Pike
20. A short, tactical list of ways to test willingness to pay, from small paid pilots to letters of intent to pricing-page click... The Glimpse Article · Starting Up 6 Practical Ways to Find Out if Your Customers are Willing to Pay The Glimpse
21. A first-hand account of how a founder recruited a small group of likely buyers, shipped the most basic thing, and iterated on... Intercom Blog Article · Starting Up How to launch with a validated idea Garrett Moon
22. Jackson's test is blunt and useful: can you name five specific real people who need this and would buy it. If you cannot, you... justinjackson.ca Essay · Starting Up A simple way to validate your startup idea Justin Jackson
23. A practical checklist for turning a hunch into tested evidence, including how to run interviews that surface pain before you... First Round Review Article · ~15 min read · Starting Up How to Test a Business Idea: Essential Tools for Validating Before You Launch First Round Review
24. This is the full, concrete story of how Airbnb got off zero, from the Craigslist cross-posting hack to poaching Craigslist... First 1000 Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up How Airbnb Got Its First 1,000 Customers Ali Abouelatta

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