Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. 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
2. 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
3. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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
7. 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)
8. 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
9. 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
10. 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
11. 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
12. Traynor's rule that you should never ask for feedback you are not prepared to act on is exactly the discipline the short answer... Intercom Blog Essay · 8 min read · Starting Up 3 rules for customer feedback Des Traynor
13. This is the companion piece that explains why the context around a piece of feedback (who said it, when, and in what mood)... Intercom Blog Article · 7 min read · Starting Up The when and where of product feedback Des Traynor
14. The Clozd founders explain exactly how to run a churn interview well: who should conduct it, why a neutral third party gets... CHURN.FM Podcast · 35 min · Starting Up Qualitative churn analysis Andrew Peterson and Spencer Dent
15. Fried and Hansson argue for asking customers a small number of open ended questions rather than running formal surveys, and... REWORK, 37signals Podcast · 25 min · Starting Up Question Your Customers Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
16. Doshi tells a visual, concrete story about a team that built for a problem customers said they had, but that was never actually... X (Twitter) Thread · 5 min read · Starting Up Destined to Fail: A B2B Product Management Story Shreyas Doshi
17. Kyle Poyar writes for people running go to market at growth stage B2B companies, so this piece is useful once your ICP needs to... Growth Unhinged Essay · 12 min read · Starting Up ICP marketing done right Kyle Poyar
18. This is a clean, no nonsense definition written for enterprise founders, distinguishing ICP (the company), buyer (who decides),... Unusual Ventures Field Guide Article · 8 min read · Starting Up What is an ideal customer profile? Unusual Ventures Field Guide
19. Lincoln Murphy is one of the people credited with popularizing the term ideal customer profile in SaaS, and this framework goes... Sixteen Ventures Article · 25 min read · Starting Up Ideal Customer Profile Framework Lincoln Murphy
20. The full book behind the Bullseye essay above, with nineteen traction channels laid out and worked examples of testing them... Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares Book · ~200 pages · Starting Up Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares
21. Video · ~2 min · Starting Up Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shares the Paul Graham advice that helped him find product/market fit Brian Chesky
22. Krish Subramanian describes trying to serve all customers early on, losing the specific insight Chargebee was actually built... YourStory Article · ~10 min read · Starting Up How Chargebee stayed focused before expanding customer segments YourStory
23. The foundational marketing text on owning a specific position in a specific customer's mind rather than trying to be relevant... Al Ries and Jack Trout Book · ~200 pages · Starting Up Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind Al Ries, Jack Trout
24. Revella more or less codified the term "buyer persona" for B2B, and this free manifesto is her own definition, not someone... Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute Essay · Starting Up The Buyer Persona Manifesto Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute

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