4 resources from Startup Archive we point founders to, and the questions each answers.
▶️ Video
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Why we picked it
A short clip of Paul Graham explaining the idea in his own words, useful if you want the core of the essay before committing to the full read. He describes the car-crank image of a startup: laborious to get going by hand, then self-sustaining once it catches. It is the fastest way to internalize why the early manual push is the whole job.
Why we picked it
DoorDash started as PaloAltoDelivery.com, a one-hour landing page with PDF menus and a phone number, and the founders personally drove every early order. It is a clean real example of combining a landing-page test with concierge delivery, then learning the operations by hand before automating anything. Concrete proof that you can test a real service with almost nothing built.
Why we picked it
Once you have decided whose call it is, you both still have to live with it, and this is the cleanest statement of how. Bezos describes voicing your objection fully, then backing the decision completely so the team can move. It gives you and your engineer a phrase to end a stalled stack debate without either of you feeling steamrolled.
Why we picked it
A short clip where Gurley explains why top-down TAM estimates are often badly wrong, using Uber and the early cell phone market as examples. It is useful ammunition when an investor over-indexes on your top-down slide. Watch it to see why the number that frames ambition should never be the number you stake your credibility on.
