Starting Up

A real question, a straight answer, and the handful of resources actually worth your time on it. 1,805 curated resources, every one with a note on why it made the cut.

Start here

The questions almost every founder hits first.

Finding & shaping ideas I want to start a startup but I don't have an idea. Where do I even begin? Stop hunting for a billion-dollar idea and start collecting problems. The best ideas come from noticing things that annoy you or people around you in a domain you actually know. Become the kind of person good ideas happen to: get deep in a fast-changing field, keep a running list of frustrations, and pick the problem you can't stop thinking about. 3 resources → Validating your idea What does 'validating an idea' actually mean? Validation is gathering real-world evidence that a specific group of people has a painful problem AND will change their behaviour (pay, sign up, switch) for your solution, BEFORE you build the whole thing. It's not asking friends if they like it. It's designing cheap tests that could prove you wrong, and running them. 3 resources → Finding a co-founder Do I actually need a co-founder, or can I go solo? You don't strictly need one, but the data says teams outlast solos: complementary skills, shared load, and someone to argue you out of bad calls all matter. If you go solo, do it because you couldn't find someone great, not because you're avoiding the hard conversation. Never take on a co-founder just to fill a seat, a mediocre partner is far worse than none. 3 resources → Building your MVP What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? An MVP is the least you can build (or fake) to test your single riskiest assumption, not a shrunken version of your dream product. Ask 'what's the one thing I must learn next?' and build only that; often it's a landing page, a manual service, or a Notion doc, not code. If you're not slightly embarrassed by it, you over-built. 3 resources → Talking to customers & user research How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? Stop pitching and start interrogating their past. Ask about what they actually did last time the problem hit, what it cost them, and what they tried, never 'would you use this?' or 'is this a good idea?', because everyone lies to be nice. Talk about their life, not your idea. 3 resources → Getting your first 10 customers How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me? You go get them by hand, one at a time, email people you already know, people your investors/friends know, and strangers in the exact niche you're building for. Do not build funnels or run ads for your first ten; recruit them personally, onboard them yourself, and treat each one like the only customer you have. The manual work is the point: it teaches you what an automated funnel never would. 4 resources → Pricing & packaging How do I decide how much to charge for my product? Stop guessing and stop pricing off your costs, price off the value the customer gets and their willingness to pay. Talk to customers about pricing, look at what comparable tools charge, and start higher than feels comfortable; almost every founder underprices. Price is a lever you're meant to keep pulling, not a one-time decision. 3 resources → Should you raise? VC vs bootstrap Should I raise venture capital or bootstrap my startup? Raise VC only if your business needs a big pile of cash to reach escape velocity before someone else does, and if a 10x-in-a-few-years outcome is genuinely plausible. If you can grow on customer revenue and want to keep control and optionality, bootstrap. VC isn't a trophy; it's debt with an ambition clause attached. 3 resources →

Follow a path

A guided sequence of topics, in the order you'd actually hit them.

From idea to first customers The idea-stage spine: find a problem, prove it, talk to customers, and land the first ten. 4 steps · 75 questions Build and launch your first product Turn a validated idea into something real people can use. 6 steps · 108 questions Get your first customers The scrappy, unscalable work of going from zero to your first paying users. 5 steps · 90 questions Raise your first round Understand the game before you pitch: whether to raise, from whom, and on what terms. 5 steps · 92 questions Build in India The India-specific playbook: schemes, government, enterprise, and the local market. 5 steps · 106 questions

The canon

The resources our answers point to most often. If you read nothing else, read these.

📖 Book The Mom Test The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past behaviour, not your idea, so you can't be lied to. If a founder reads one thing before talking to a single customer, it's this. momtestbook.com → ✍️ Essay Do Things That Don't Scale The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few customers. The cheapest, most honest way to validate demand is to go get it one person at a time. paulgraham.com → ✍️ Essay How to Get Startup Ideas The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for judging whether your idea is a real problem or a solution in search of one. paulgraham.com → 📖 Book Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook The authoritative handbook on founder-led sales, written for technical/first-time sellers building B2B SaaS. Readable free online via membership, and covers the whole motion end to end. foundingsales.com → 📄 Article 16 Startup Metrics The reference primer on the metrics and market-sizing logic investors use, including bottom-up market sizing that keeps founders honest about how big a market really is. Canonical a16z source. a16z → 📄 Article Procurement by Government, Public Procurement Benefits for DPIIT Startups The authoritative, government-hosted explanation of exactly what a DPIIT-recognised startup gets in public procurement. If you want to know your real rights before you bid, this is the primary source, not a blog's interpretation of it. startupindia.gov.in → 🎧 Podcast The Neon Show, Indian Founders on Pricing, Sales & Building The Neon Show (formerly 100x Entrepreneur) is one of India's deepest founder-and-investor interview podcasts, covering pricing, SaaS, and go-to-market from operators who've built for both India and global markets. Real, unfiltered lessons for Indian founders. neon.fund → 📖 Book Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth The definitive playbook on distribution, it catalogs all 19 channels and gives you the Bullseye framework to systematically find the one that works. Essential for anyone thinking channel-first. Portfolio / Penguin → ✍️ Essay The Only Thing That Matters The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels like when it's happening vs when it isn't, the intuition behind the metrics. pmarchive.com →

Building in India

The India-specific playbook

418 resources tagged for the Indian market: government grants and schemes, selling to enterprise and the public sector, incorporation, and the local fundraising reality.

Follow the India path →