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. The practical answer to a crowded screen: show the few things most people need first, and tuck the advanced options behind a... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read Progressive Disclosure Jakob Nielsen In 3 answers
  2. A clean primer if you have never run a test. It defines the three pieces that matter (a facilitator who does not lead,... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~12 min read Usability Testing 101 Kate Moran In 3 answers
  3. This is the technique that turns watching into understanding. Ask users to narrate their thoughts while they work, and their... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~6 min read Thinking Aloud: The #1 Usability Tool Jakob Nielsen In 3 answers
  4. 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 2 answers
  5. The customer-development originator's clearest statement on scoping the minimum feature set to reach your earliest believers.... steveblank.com Article · ~8 min read Perfection by Subtraction, The Minimum Feature Set Steve Blank In 2 answers
  6. This is the essay that forces the honest question underneath your idea: are you building a growth company or a good small... Paul Graham Essay · ~20 min read Startup = Growth Paul Graham In 2 answers
  7. For a two-sided marketplace, the first real decision is which side to define and win first, and this essay makes the case... NFX Essay · Long read (about 25 minutes) 19 Tactics to Solve the Chicken-or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace James Currier In 2 answers
  8. 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 2 answers
  9. Lavingia's whole thesis is the one you need as a part-time founder: start with a community you already know and belong to, then... Penguin Random House Book · 288 pages The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less Sahil Lavingia In 2 answers
  10. If Spolsky tells you not to rewrite from scratch, this gives you the alternative: replace the old thing piece by piece while it... martinfowler.com Article · ~8 min read Strangler Fig Application Martin Fowler In 2 answers
  11. Arvid Kahl built and sold a company on radical transparency, sharing his real revenue numbers publicly, so this is not a... The Bootstrapped Founder Essay · ~10 min read The Increasing Risk of Building in Public Arvid Kahl In 2 answers
  12. This is Bubble's own guide, and it names the exact levers that decide whether a search stays fast as your data grows: put... manual.bubble.io Article Performance and scaling Bubble In 2 answers
  13. The book behind the "One Metric That Matters" discipline, which is exactly the mindset you need to judge whether a ship worked... O'Reilly / Lean Series Book · 440 pages Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz In 2 answers
  14. Once you have a second engineer, the question stops being taste and starts being: what actually keeps a team shipping fast... IT Revolution Press Book · ~250 pages Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble, and Gene Kim In 2 answers
  15. This is the direct answer to the pressure problem in the question: if a public roadmap scares you because of dates you cannot... prodpad.com Article Why I Invented the Now-Next-Later Roadmap Janna Bastow In 2 answers
  16. This is the reference everyone quietly copies when they first try to write down their brand voice, and it is public, free, and... Mailchimp Content Style Guide Article Voice and Tone, Mailchimp Content Style Guide Mailchimp In 2 answers
  17. 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 How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  18. Once you know your curve should flatten, the next question is where it should flatten, and this piece answers it with concrete... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~10 min read What is good retention? Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  19. This is the canonical a16z reference that defines the marketplace vocabulary you actually need before you build a model: GMV vs... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay 13 Metrics Every Marketplace Company Should Track Jeff Jordan, Li Jin, D'Arcy Coolican, Andrew Chen (a16z) In 2 answers
  20. Walling built and sold bootstrapped companies (including Drip) and has backed hundreds more through TinySeed, so this is... SaaS Playbook (Rob Walling) Book · About 200 pages The SaaS Playbook: Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital Rob Walling In 2 answers
  21. This is the operating manual behind the answer's core rule: don't run a remote team on vibes. GitLab runs 1,600+ people across... The GitLab Handbook Article · 25 min read Asynchronous communication for remote work GitLab In 2 answers
  22. 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 How to Know If You've Got Product-Market Fit Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  23. A founder-friendly crash course on planning and running discovery interviews, with tactics from researchers at Zoom, Zapier,... First Round Review Article · 20 min read A UX Research Crash Course for Founders Jane Davis In 2 answers
  24. A step by step process for taking an idea to something people want without building the wrong product first. Maurya's mantra,... Ash Maurya (O'Reilly) Book · ~336 pages Running Lean (3rd Edition) Ash Maurya In 2 answers

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 →