Build the product

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

1. 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 Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule Paul Graham In 3 answers
2. This is the canonical warning against throwing away working code and rebuilding from scratch, told through Netscape's rewrite... Joel on Software Essay · ~10 min read Things You Should Never Do, Part I Joel Spolsky In 3 answers
3. Most migration writing is either no-code hype or agency sales pitches. This one gives you an actual checklist to run before you... AlterSquare Essay When to Migrate Off Bubble (or Any No-Code Tool): The Decision Framework Huzefa Motiwala In 3 answers
4. This is the canonical explanation of what a reviewer actually means when they flag your inherited code as risky. Fowler frames... martinfowler.com Essay · About a 10 minute read Technical Debt Martin Fowler In 3 answers
5. This is the short, practical manual for actually doing a test yourself, no training required. Krug walks you through running a... Steve Krug (New Riders) Book · About 168 pages Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems Steve Krug In 3 answers
6. This is the one principle that answers your worry head on: users spend most of their time on other apps, so they expect yours... Laws of UX Essay · 5 min read Jakob's Law Jon Yablonski (principle by Jakob Nielsen) In 3 answers
7. The canonical fake-door test, told by the founder who ran it. Buffer started as a two-page site: one page pitched the tool, a... Buffer Article · ~10 min read Idea to Paying Customers in 7 Weeks: How We Did It Joel Gascoigne In 3 answers
8. 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 How to Validate Your B2B Startup Idea Lenny Rachitsky In 3 answers
9. The idea that started the lean movement, from the person who coined it. No business plan survives first contact with customers,... steveblank.com Article · ~8 min read Get Out of the Building Steve Blank In 3 answers
10. Savoia, who led early Google AdWords, argues most ideas fail because nobody wanted them, and teaches pretotyping: cheap... Alberto Savoia Book · ~250 pages The Right It: Why So Many Ideas Fail and How to Make Sure Yours Succeed Alberto Savoia In 3 answers
11. A short, free primer straight from the person who coined the term, useful when someone on your team thinks an MVP just means a... Lean Startup Co. Article · ~8 min read What Is an MVP? Eric Ries Explains Eric Ries In 3 answers
12. Cagan draws a sharp line that saves founders real pain: the thing you use to test a hypothesis is an experiment, not a product... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · 6 min read Minimum Viable Product Marty Cagan In 3 answers
13. A clear, jargon-free explainer that corrects the most common misuse of the term, where teams ship a broken product and call it... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Definition Sara Paul In 3 answers
14. Beck, a foundational voice in software, adds useful nuance about what minimal really means and why teams so often get it wrong.... Tidy First (Kent Beck) Essay · ~1,000 words Minimum Viable Product Revisited Kent Beck In 3 answers
15. This gives you the sharpest rule for the build versus buy call: if it is a core business function, build it yourself, and if it... Joel on Software Essay · 10 min read In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome Joel Spolsky In 3 answers
16. This is the canonical case for building less, and its chapters Build Less and Underdo Your Competition speak straight to your... 37signals Book · Short book, readable online Getting Real Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson In 3 answers
17. This one line from LinkedIn's co founder is the mindset that makes buying infrastructure feel safe: the first version is meant... Reid Hoffman (X) Thread · 1 min If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late Reid Hoffman In 3 answers
18. Concrete, field-tested advice on deciding which debt to pay and how to justify it. Orosz and Franco share practical rules of... The Pragmatic Engineer Article · 20 min read Paying down tech debt Gergely Orosz and Lou Franco In 3 answers
19. A clear, tool by tool guide to turning an idea into a working prototype in minutes, aimed at people who do not code. It sorts... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 25 min read A guide to AI prototyping for product managers Colin Matthews In 3 answers
20. Erik Kennedy writes for engineers and founders who were never taught design, and his rules are unusually memorable (light comes... Learn UI Design (Erik Kennedy) Essay · 25 min read 7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI Erik D. Kennedy In 3 answers
21. The classic that gives non, designers four principles they will use forever: contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity.... Robin Williams (Peachpit) Book · 240 pages The Non-Designer's Design Book Robin Williams In 3 answers
22. Facebook's former head of product design on what separates good design from decoration, which reframes polish as clarity and... The Year of the Looking Glass (Julie Zhuo) Essay · 8 min read Good Design Julie Zhuo In 3 answers
23. Levels built profitable products almost entirely by himself, and this handbook is his blunt account of how a solo maker ships,... readmake.com Book · Digital handbook MAKE: The Indie Maker Blueprint Pieter Levels In 3 answers
24. 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 Who: The A Method for Hiring Geoff Smart and Randy Street In 3 answers

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