Find & validate your idea

Find a problem worth solving, then prove people want it before you build.

What founders use for find & validate your idea, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. The definitive playbook for network and community-led products, drawn from Andrew Chen's a16z experience and interviews with... Harper Business Book · Book (~368 pages) The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects Andrew Chen In 4 answers
  2. A punchy, contrarian classic on building a lean, sane, profitable company from the founders of Basecamp. It's the antidote to... 37signals Book · ~288 pages Rework Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson In 4 answers
  3. CB Insights read hundreds of real startup postmortems and found that poor product-market fit (around 43 percent) is the single... CB Insights Article · ~15 min read The Top 12 Reasons Startups Fail CB Insights In 4 answers
  4. A VC and HBS lecturer takes on the belief that you must be a domain insider to win, and he is honest about both sides: the... Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge, Harvard Business School) Essay · ~10 min read The Outsiders: Defying the Myth of Founder-Market Fit Jeff Bussgang In 4 answers
  5. Most founders treat customer research as a one-time pre-launch exercise, then go quiet once the product ships. Torres makes the... Amazon Book · ~200 pages Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value Teresa Torres In 4 answers
  6. This is the most concrete walkthrough of how to test a niche when you have nothing built yet: put up a page describing the... kromatic.com Essay · ~15 min read Fake Door / Smoke Test Kromatic (The Real Startup Book) In 4 answers
  7. Jackson breaks fit into levels and asks how acute the problem is, how reachable the audience is, and how differentiated your... Lenny's Newsletter Article · about 20 min read A Framework for Finding Product-Market Fit Todd Jackson (First Round Capital) In 4 answers
  8. A hands-on companion to The Mom Test with more structure on who to talk to and how to run the process. Alvarez is strong on... Cindy Alvarez Book · ~240 pages Lean Customer Development Cindy Alvarez In 4 answers
  9. Steve Blank coined get out of the building, and this is a clean primer on why talking to customers is a search for facts your... Kauffman Entrepreneurs (Steve Blank) Article · 10 min read Getting Out of the Building: Customer Development Steve Blank In 4 answers
  10. A counterweight for when you overcorrect into safe, small, derivative ideas. Graham describes why the biggest ideas often feel... Paul Graham (paulgraham.com) Essay · ~12 min read Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas Paul Graham In 4 answers
  11. Essential reading for anyone sizing an Indian market. Pai shows that India's billion people are not one payable market: roughly... Sajith Pai Essay India1, Avocado Startups, and Finding Product Market Fit Sajith Pai In 4 answers
  12. A side-by-side of both methods that makes clear why you use bottom-up as your primary number and top-down only as a rough... Waveup Article · 14 min read Top-Down vs Bottom-Up Market Size Calculation Waveup In 4 answers
  13. The hype cycle names the exact trap in your question: the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, then... Gartner Article · 10 min read Gartner Hype Cycle Research Methodology Gartner In 4 answers
  14. Kelly's argument is that some technological directions carry their own momentum, so you can reason about where things are... Kevin Kelly (kk.org) Book · 336 pages The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future Kevin Kelly In 4 answers
  15. Twice a year Evans publishes a free deck reading the macro and strategic shifts in tech, strong on second order effects, not... ben-evans.com Article · 90+ slides Benedict Evans: annual tech trend presentations Benedict Evans In 4 answers
  16. The most systematic step-by-step process for de-risking an idea, built around the Lean Canvas. Where The Lean Startup gives... LEANSTACK Book · ~240 pages Running Lean Ash Maurya In 3 answers
  17. Naval's concept of 'specific knowledge', the thing that feels like play to you and work to everyone else, is the clearest... nav.al Article · ~20 min read How to Get Rich (specific knowledge, leverage & judgment) Naval Ravikant In 3 answers
  18. The foundational text of customer development, 'get out of the building' started here and became the backbone of the Lean... steveblank.com Book · ~370 pages The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win Steve Blank In 3 answers
  19. The most concrete guide to actually measuring what customers will pay, including survey methods and tier design. It turns... lennysnewsletter.com Article · long-form guide The Ultimate Guide to Willingness to Pay Lenny Rachitsky & Patrick Campbell In 3 answers
  20. The canonical primary source on the mindset shift before you start up, Graham's Stanford lecture directly addresses whether you... paulgraham.com Essay · ~6,000 words Before the Startup Paul Graham In 3 answers
  21. Moore's classic maps the market you are timing your entry into: innovators and early adopters buy for very different reasons... Goodreads Book · ~250 pages Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers Geoffrey A. Moore In 3 answers
  22. This is written by an early-stage Indian investor (founder of Gemba Capital), so you get the assessment from the exact side of... Adith Podhar (Gemba Capital) Essay · ~12 min read How to Assess Founder Market Fit: A Framework Adith Podhar In 3 answers
  23. Steve Blank is the person who most clearly made the case against planning everything and then unveiling it in one big moment.... steveblank.com Essay · 5 min read No Business Plan Survives First Contact With Customers. 2 Minutes to See Why Steve Blank In 3 answers
  24. Kahl's whole argument is that you earn an audience by embedding in a community and being useful first, then building with those... embeddedentrepreneur.com Book · ~280 pages The Embedded Entrepreneur: How to Build an Audience-Driven Business Arvid Kahl In 3 answers

Show the next 24

The questions

Finding & shaping ideas 18

Find a problem worth years of your life.

I want to start a startup but I don't have an idea. Where do I even begin? 19 → How do I come up with startup ideas that aren't just 'Uber for X'? 19 → Should I solve a problem I personally have, or chase a bigger market? 19 → How do I know if my idea is a real problem or just a 'nice to have'? 19 → I have too many ideas. How do I pick which one to actually work on? 19 → All 18 questions in Finding & shaping ideas →
Validating your idea 21

Get evidence before you write code.

What does 'validating an idea' actually mean? 20 → How do I know if my idea is any good? 18 → How do I validate an idea without building anything? 18 → How do I talk to customers without getting false positives? 19 → How many people should I talk to, and how do I find them? 17 → All 21 questions in Validating your idea →
Market size & timing 18

Is it big enough, and why now?

How big does my market need to be for this to be a real business? 19 → What are TAM, SAM, and SOM and how do I actually calculate them? 18 → Why does 'why now?' matter so much for a startup idea? 17 → My market is small right now but growing fast. Is that a problem? 16 → How do I size a market for India specifically when data is messy? 19 → All 18 questions in Market size & timing →
Founder-market fit 17

Why you, and why this problem?

What is founder-market fit and how do I know if I have it? 18 → Do I need to be an expert in an industry to start a company in it? 19 → I'm passionate about an idea but have zero background in it. Should I still do it? 19 → How much does 'why you?' actually matter to investors and to success? 19 → As a woman founder, or one building outside the big startup hubs, how do I turn my background into an edge? 19 → All 17 questions in Founder-market fit →
Spotting trends & opportunities 18

Live in the future and build what's missing.

How do I spot trends early enough to build a startup on them? 20 → How do I tell the difference between a real trend and a passing fad? 20 → Everyone says the next big thing looks like a toy. What does that actually mean? 16 → Where do I look to find emerging opportunities before they're obvious? 19 → What are the biggest emerging opportunities in India right now? 18 → All 18 questions in Spotting trends & opportunities →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →