Build the product

Ship an MVP, work with builders, and iterate toward something people use.

What founders use for build the product, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. A compact three-part filter for a first technical hire: can they reliably ship, do they use current tools well, and did you get... Medium Article · Short read Non-technical guide to evaluating engineers Mike Lerner
  2. A focused chapter aimed squarely at the non-technical reader, on reading communication, asking a candidate to explain why a... Gun.io Article · Short read How to Assess a Developer's Skills Without Technical Knowledge Gun.io
  3. A broad, readable primer covering portfolio reviews, trial projects, and leaning on advisors, written for founders with no... DigitalOcean Article · Medium read Technical hiring for non-technical founders DigitalOcean
  4. Directly titled to this question, it argues for defining the one problem you actually need solved, hiring a pragmatic... Metamindz Article · Medium read How to Hire Your First Developer When You Can't Code Metamindz
  5. Mullenweg's HBR first-person account of switching Automattic to paid tryouts after charming interviews kept misfiring. It is... Harvard Business Review Article · Medium read The CEO of Automattic on Holding Auditions to Build a Strong Team Matt Mullenweg
  6. Wasserman studied 10,000 founders and found the counterintuitive result: founders who give away more equity to attract strong... Noam Wasserman Article · 12 min read Rich versus King: The Core Concept Noam Wasserman
  7. The short HBR version of Wasserman's research if you do not want the whole book. It lays out the rich versus king tradeoff... Harvard Business Review Article · 10 min read The Founder's Dilemma Noam Wasserman
  8. This is the benchmark data you need for the early engineer side of the question. Carta shows real grant sizes by hire number... Carta Article · 12 min read How much equity should I give early employees? Carta
  9. A full handbook on option pools and employee grants built on data from thousands of startups. It answers the practical... Index Ventures Article · handbook Rewarding Talent Index Ventures
  10. A practical system for balancing salary and equity so comp stops being a recurring negotiation. It helps you decide how much... First Round Review Article · 15 min read A Counterintuitive System for Startup Compensation Molly Graham
  11. A focused guide on the early employee side: how to size grants for your first several hires and set up the option pool. It... Pear VC Article · 12 min read How to Structure Startup Equity for Early Hires Pear VC
  12. From an India and Southeast Asia cap table platform, this walks through the common approaches to splitting between co-founders... Qapita Article · 10 min read How to Navigate a Cofounder Equity Split Successfully Qapita
  13. A clean, practical checklist from an accelerator that has seen thousands of teams: how to run the split conversation, why equal... Techstars Article · 9 min read How to Split Co-Founder Equity (The Right Way) Techstars
  14. This is the clearest statement of the exact idea in our answer: a spec describes how the product works entirely from the user's... Joel on Software Essay · 10 min read Painless Functional Specifications, Part 2: What's a Spec? Joel Spolsky
  15. Part 2 tells you what a spec is, this one covers who writes it and how they build agreement without authority, walking through... Joel on Software Essay · 12 min read Painless Functional Specifications, Part 3: But... How? Joel Spolsky
  16. The healthy counterweight to over documenting. 37signals argues that a thick spec creates false agreement (everyone reads the... Getting Real (37signals) Essay · 6 min read There's Nothing Functional about a Functional Spec 37signals
  17. Amazon's trick is to write the customer facing press release and FAQ before building anything, which forces you to describe the... Working Backwards (Colin Bryar and Bill Carr) Article · 12 min read The Amazon Working Backwards PR/FAQ Process Colin Bryar and Bill Carr
  18. Cagan, the most cited voice in product management, makes the case that a clickable prototype communicates intent better than a... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · 8 min read Revisiting the Product Spec Marty Cagan
  19. A simple, powerful sentence template for describing what a user is trying to do: when [situation], I want to [motivation], so I... Intercom Blog Article · 8 min read How we accidentally invented Job Stories Paul Adams
  20. Story mapping is the technique for laying out the user's journey left to right and slicing off the smallest first version,... Jeff Patton & Associates Essay · 20 min read User Story Mapping Jeff Patton
  21. A plain, practical guide to the as a user, I want, so that format that lets you describe features without a shred of technical... Atlassian Agile Coach Article · 10 min read User Stories with Examples and a Template Atlassian
  22. Blank is the origin of get out of the building and customer development, the discipline that a no-code MVP is meant to serve.... Steve Blank (steveblank.com) Article · 12 min read No Business Plan Survives First Contact With A Customer Steve Blank
  23. This is the whole thesis in one story. Reed, a non-technical founder, stitched together Typeform, Stripe, and a simple site to... Tara Reed, Lean Startup Co. Article · 12 min read How I Built My Startup Kollecto With No Code Tara Reed
  24. A clear, credible how-to for a non-technical founder building a first MVP without hiring anyone. It maps common no-code tools... Harvard Innovation Labs Article · 10 min read No-Code, No Problem: Building Your First MVP Without an Engineer Harvard Innovation Labs

Show the next 24

The questions

Building your MVP 18

Build the smallest thing that tests the biggest risk.

What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? 20 → How do I decide which features to cut from v1? 18 → How long should building an MVP take? 19 → Should I build an MVP at all, or can I validate without one? 20 → How do I get my first users for the MVP? 17 → All 18 questions in Building your MVP →
No-code & low-code building 18

Ship a product without writing code.

Which no-code tool should I use to build my first product? 20 → Can I really build a serious business on no-code, or will I hit a wall? 18 → Should I use an AI app builder like Lovable or Replit instead of traditional no-code? 20 → How do I connect payments and handle data if I'm building no-code in India? 20 → What can I build with just a spreadsheet as the backend? 20 → All 18 questions in No-code & low-code building →
Finding & working with developers 18

Get it built when you can't build it yourself.

I'm non-technical, do I actually need a technical co-founder? 18 → How do I actually find a technical co-founder? 19 → Should I hire an agency or a freelancer to build my MVP? 17 → How do I hire good engineers in India when everyone's competing for the same talent? 18 → How do I evaluate a developer's skill if I can't code? 19 → All 18 questions in Finding & working with developers →
Product design & UX basics 18

Make it obvious, not clever.

I'm not a designer, how do I make my product not look terrible? 18 → What are the core UX principles every founder should know? 20 → How do I know if my product is confusing to users? 17 → Should I learn Figma, and how much design do I really need? 19 → Why does good design actually matter for an early-stage startup? 19 → All 18 questions in Product design & UX basics →
Shipping, iterating & roadmap 18

Ship weekly, learn constantly, prioritise ruthlessly.

How do I decide what to build next? 19 → How often should an early-stage startup ship? 19 → How do I build a roadmap without over-planning? 19 → How do I keep talking to users while I'm heads-down building? 18 → How do product teams keep a consistent shipping rhythm as they grow? 18 → All 18 questions in Shipping, iterating & roadmap →
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →