Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. Blank's core idea, get out of the building, is the discipline that lets a non-technical founder create real value before... steveblank.com Article · Starting Up Customer Development: Get Out of the Building Steve Blank In 3 answers
2. YC partner Harj Taggar walks through where co-founders actually come from, when to bring one on, and how to run the search... Y Combinator Startup Library (Harj Taggar) Video · 20 min · Starting Up How to Find the Right Co-Founder Harj Taggar In 3 answers
3. A simple, repeatable four-step method for making hiring decisions instead of going on gut feel, which is where costly mis-hires... Geoff Smart and Randy Street Book · Book, around 200 pages · Starting Up Who: The A Method for Hiring Geoff Smart and Randy Street In 3 answers
4. The companion conversation, focused on how Zerodha actually built its engineering team in the Indian market, from first hires... Software Misadventures Podcast · 1 hr 15 min · Starting Up Kailash Nadh on Building the Tech Team at Zerodha Software Misadventures In 3 answers
5. Video · 44 min · Starting Up Refactoring UI (CSS Day 2019 talk) Steve Schoger In 3 answers
6. A short, illustrated checklist of rules that are safe to follow when you have no design intuition yet. Never use pure black or... anthonyhobday.com Article · 15 min read · Starting Up Visual design rules you can safely follow every time Anthony Hobday In 3 answers
7. A two minute explanation of one of the most practical rules for founders: users spend nearly all their time on other apps, so... Nielsen Norman Group Video · 2 min · Starting Up Jakob's Law of Internet User Experience (video) Jakob Nielsen In 3 answers
8. The practical answer to a crowded screen: show the few things most people need first, and tuck the advanced options behind a... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read · Starting Up Progressive Disclosure Jakob Nielsen In 3 answers
9. This is the technique that turns watching into understanding. Ask users to narrate their thoughts while they work, and their... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~6 min read · Starting Up Thinking Aloud: The #1 Usability Tool Jakob Nielsen In 3 answers
10. Video · 18 minutes · Starting Up Design for Startups (Part 1) Garry Tan In 3 answers
11. Zerodha built one of India's most used products with a tiny team and a stubborn focus on simplicity over polish. Kamath's view... Inc42 Article · 15 minute read · Starting Up Instincts, People and Vision: Nithin Kamath on Zerodha's Product Secrets Inc42 In 3 answers
12. Testing with the wrong five people teaches you nothing, so this piece helps you decide who your five should actually be.... Lenny's Newsletter Article · Starting Up Identify your bullseye customer in one day Michael Margolis In 3 answers
13. A crisp, opinionated set of principles for building software: work in cycles, say no to busy work, keep momentum, and let the... Linear Tool · Reference site · Starting Up Linear Method: Practices for building Linear In 3 answers
14. The Basecamp founders make the case that yes is cheap in the moment and expensive for years, so no should be your default... REWORK (37signals) Podcast · 24 min · Starting Up Say No by Default Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson In 3 answers
15. Chopra bootstrapped Wingify to a large exit from India after first failing by building an everything tool nobody asked for. He... The Neon Show Podcast · 60 min · Starting Up How To Build A Successful Startup In India ft Paras Chopra Siddhartha Ahluwalia and Paras Chopra In 3 answers
16. A living list of problem areas YC actively wants founders to tackle, useful as raw material and as a way to spot where the... Y Combinator Tool · Browse · Starting Up Requests for Startups Y Combinator In 3 answers
17. The Zerodha co-founder picks an industry, then asks the most basic first-principles questions until you understand how it... Nikhil Kamath Podcast · 60 to 120 min episodes · Starting Up WTF is with Nikhil Kamath Nikhil Kamath In 3 answers
18. A community where founders openly share the problems they are solving, what is working, and what is not. Reading real people... Indie Hackers Tool · Browse · Starting Up Indie Hackers Indie Hackers In 3 answers
19. This goes underneath Delta 4 into why Indians pay for some things and not others: value versus price, trust, and the real value... Farnam Street, The Knowledge Project Podcast · ~2 hr · Starting Up Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations (The Knowledge Project) Shane Parrish and Kunal Shah In 3 answers
20. Intercom's Jobs-to-be-Done writing shows how to ask what customers are hiring your product to do, which forces you to describe... Intercom Article · ~short book, free · Starting Up Understanding Jobs-to-be-Done Des Traynor, Intercom In 3 answers
21. Shapiro gives you five specific things to monitor (technology, behavior, environment, regulation, distribution) so your... Julian Shapiro (Startup Handbook) Essay · 20 min read · Starting Up Finding Startup Ideas through Market Timing Julian Shapiro In 3 answers
22. Johnson shows that most breakthroughs are slow hunches that sit half-formed for years and combine with other fragments, which... TED (Steven Johnson) Video · 18 min · Starting Up Where good ideas come from Steven Johnson In 3 answers
23. Written from an early-stage investor's chair, this walks the calculation with examples and is blunt that a bottom-up build... Antler Article · Starting Up TAM, SAM and SOM: How to Calculate the Size of Your Market Akshat Agarwal In 3 answers
24. A follow up that applies the idea maze to a wave many of you are riding right now. It shows how founders repeatedly chased the... cdixon.org Essay · 5 min read · Starting Up The idea maze for AI startups Chris Dixon In 3 answers

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