Every resource founders actually use, in one library.

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

1. The de facto global standard for pitch deck structure, straight from Sequoia. The same outline Airbnb's founders used; if you... Sequoia Capital Template · 10 min read · Starting Up Writing a Business Plan (The Sequoia Pitch Deck Template) Sequoia Capital In 11 answers
2. Battle-tested YC advice on landing your critical first engineering hire, from founders who've done it at scale. It reframes... YC Startup Library Article · Essay · Starting Up How to hire your first engineer (YC Startup Library) Y Combinator (Greg Brockman, Harj Taggar) In 11 answers
3. The essay that explains why one badly-placed meeting can destroy a founder's entire day of building, and what to do about it.... paulgraham.com Article · short · Starting Up Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule Paul Graham In 11 answers
4. Arvid Kahl bootstrapped and sold a SaaS solo, and now publishes the most practical ongoing guidance for one-person and... thebootstrappedfounder.com Podcast · long · Starting Up The Bootstrapped Founder (blog & podcast) Arvid Kahl In 11 answers
5. This is the founder essay that made the case for validating before you build, from the person who did it with Buffer. Gascoigne... Medium (Joel Gascoigne, co-founder of Buffer) Essay · Starting Up How to successfully validate your idea with a Landing Page MVP Joel Gascoigne In 11 answers
6. Most first 100 users advice is vague. This piece is the opposite: it groups the real cold start tactics into seven concrete... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About a 15 minute read · Starting Up How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
7. If you are selling to companies rather than consumers, this is the specific playbook. Four concrete ways founders got signal... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~12 min read · Starting Up How to Validate Your B2B Startup Idea Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
8. Once you are testing an idea, this piece gives you concrete signals that tell you whether it is actually working, from... Lenny's Newsletter Article · about 15 min read · Starting Up How to Know If You've Got Product-Market Fit Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
9. A rare account of the specific moments a GTM changed shape, from narrowing to cold email agencies, to reversing the demo, to... First Round Review Article · ~25 min read · GTM The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation Varun Anand In 11 answers
10. A sitting CIO explains how he actually finds and evaluates startup vendors, including that roughly 80% arrive through outbound.... The Neon Show Podcast · 62 min · GTM How Startups Can Sell to Big Companies ft. Karthik Chakkarapani, Zuora Siddhartha Ahluwalia In 11 answers
11. Benchmarks from 500 plus products: 34 percent average, 36 percent for SaaS. If you have ever wondered whether your number is... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 12 min read · GTM What is a good activation rate Lenny Rachitsky and Yuriy Timen In 11 answers
12. The clearest short explanation of why market category is one of five interdependent positioning pieces, with a real... aprildunford.com Article · 12 min read · GTM A Quickstart Guide to Positioning April Dunford In 11 answers
13. The clearest short piece on how to think about giving up and holding equity, and why a smaller slice of a bigger outcome is the... paulgraham.com Essay · Wealth The Equity Equation Paul Graham In 11 answers
14. The clearest, calmest case ever written for low cost index investing and leaving it alone. Global, but the mindset travels... jlcollinsnh.com Essay · Wealth The Stock Series JL Collins In 11 answers
15. A plain-language India primer on what an ESOP actually is, how vesting and exercise work, and how it is taxed. ClearTax Article · Wealth What is an ESOP? Meaning, taxation, and how it works ClearTax In 11 answers
16. The nuanced counterweight: PMF isn't a single binary moment, it can be lost, and 'market' is doing more work than founders... a16z.com Article · ~20 min read · Starting Up 12 Things About Product-Market Fit Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) In 10 answers
17. Julian Shapiro's growth handbook frames brand and messaging as downstream of who you're for and what you replace, practical... julian.com Article · 20 min read · Starting Up Positioning (Startup Handbook: brand and marketing foundations) Julian Shapiro In 10 answers
18. The most quoted essay on the mechanics of fundraising, distilled from YC Demo Day advice. It reframes fundraising as a sales... paulgraham.com Article · 45 min read · Starting Up How to Raise Money Paul Graham In 10 answers
19. The primary source for the SAFE itself, plus YC's plain-English primer explaining post-money mechanics. Use the official... Y Combinator Tool · templates + primer · Starting Up YC Safe Financing Documents (Official Post-Money SAFE) Y Combinator In 10 answers
20. This is the canonical piece that put jobs to be done on the map, written by the people who coined it. It uses the famous... Harvard Business Review Article · ~20 min read · Starting Up Know Your Customers' Jobs to Be Done Clayton Christensen et al. In 10 answers
21. Video · About 26 minutes · Starting Up How to Succeed with a Startup Sam Altman (Y Combinator) In 10 answers
22. Video · Starting Up Startup Pricing 101 Kevin Hale In 10 answers
23. The book that coined get out of the building and launched the customer development movement. Blank's core claim is that a... Wiley Book · Starting Up The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank In 10 answers
24. Your first filter is whether this is a problem you understand, and this short essay is the clearest statement of why that... cdixon.org Essay · ~5 min read · Starting Up Founder/Market Fit Chris Dixon In 10 answers

Show the next 24