Starting Up

The resources founders actually use.

Every essay, video, podcast, book and tool behind 1,046 answered founder questions, in one place, each with a note on why it is here.

What founders use most, ranked by how many answers lean on it.

  1. This is a curated run of founder interviews on The SaaS Podcast about landing the very first paying customers, and the... SaaS Club Podcast · Ongoing series, ~45 to 60 min episodes Getting Your First SaaS Customers (Founder Interviews) Omer Khan, The SaaS Podcast In 2 answers
  2. Arvid Kahl bootstrapped and sold a real business, so this is a founder talking tradeoffs, not theory. He argues for finding an... Indie Hackers Podcast · About 60 to 70 minutes Indie Hackers Podcast #212: Arvid Kahl on Building an Audience Before a Product Courtland Allen (host), Arvid Kahl (guest) In 2 answers
  3. Product Hunt reaches a global, product-curious crowd, so if your buyer is in India this episode grounds the decision in what... Practical Founders Podcast Podcast · Podcast episode, roughly 45 to 60 minutes Bootstrapped B2B SaaS in India Serving IT Services Companies, with Sandeep Kumar Greg Head In 2 answers
  4. Arvid Kahl built and sold a SaaS, then grew a real audience of tens of thousands almost entirely online, from outside any... Apple Podcasts Podcast · Ongoing series, most episodes 20 to 40 minutes The Bootstrapped Founder Arvid Kahl In 2 answers
  5. Madhavan Ramanujam has helped architect pricing for dozens of well-known companies, and here he walks through how real teams... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 20 minutes The art and science of pricing (Madhavan Ramanujam) Lenny Rachitsky with Madhavan Ramanujam In 2 answers
  6. SaaSBoomi is the community of Indian SaaS founders, so when its hosts work through pricing plans (product, perceived value,... SaaSBoomi Podcast Getting SaaS Pricing Right (SaaSBoomi Podcast) SaaSBoomi (hosts Arvind Parthiban and Varun Shoor) In 2 answers
  7. A UX research leader's playbook for validating an idea with high-quality interviews instead of leading ones. She covers... First Round Review Podcast · ~45 min The early user research playbook for founders Jeanette Mellinger In 2 answers
  8. Meesho literally started as sellers running WhatsApp boutiques, which is the spreadsheet and WhatsApp validation path playing... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~45 min listen Vidit Aatrey (Meesho) on Building a Category-Defining Startup Vidit Aatrey and Amit Somani In 2 answers
  9. Campbell has pricing data on thousands of companies, and his core message is that willingness to pay is something you can... Intercom (Inside Intercom) Podcast Patrick Campbell on the Art and Science of Pricing Patrick Campbell In 2 answers
  10. Podcast SaaS Startups: Early Stage Sales, Product Demos and Right to Sell with Jen Abel Jen Abel and Amit Somani In 2 answers
  11. IndiaMART is India's largest B2B marketplace, and its founder talks candidly about aggregating supply first (opening 52 offices... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~45 min Bundling & Unbundling, Blitzscaling & B2B Opportunities with Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO IndiaMART Prime Venture Partners In 2 answers
  12. Hosted by a founder who has built and sold companies in India, this show digs into how Indian founders actually got from zero... YouTube Podcast · 45 to 90 min episodes The Neon Show Siddhartha Ahluwalia In 2 answers
  13. The creator of Shape Up talks through fixing the time and cutting the scope, which is exactly the discipline that keeps an MVP... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · 90 min A Better Way to Plan, Build, and Ship Products (Shape Up) Ryan Singer In 2 answers
  14. Steve Schoger answers real listener questions like how to make a design feel original, how to choose fonts, and how to style... Full Stack Radio Podcast · 1 hr Full Stack Radio 103: Steve Schoger, Design Q&A Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger In 2 answers
  15. Levels has shipped dozens of profitable products almost entirely solo, using deliberately simple tools plus AI, and he talks in... Lex Fridman Podcast #440 Podcast · 3h 43m Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life Lex Fridman and Pieter Levels In 2 answers
  16. The inventor of Now-Next-Later goes deep with Lenny on how to run a roadmap that stays flexible without turning into chaos. She... Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · ~60 min Building better product roadmaps (Janna Bastow) Janna Bastow, Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  17. A tighter conversation on the same method, good if you want the JTBD idea in under an hour. Moesta stresses that the biggest... Intercom (Inside Intercom) Podcast Bob Moesta on Unpacking Customer Motivations with Jobs to be Done Bob Moesta In 2 answers
  18. Sanjay Swamy built mobile payments in India in 2006, roughly two generations before Aadhaar, smartphones, and UPI made them... Prime Venture Partners Podcast · 45 min Why mChek Failed Before UPI Took Over India (Sanjay Swamy on Building Too Early) Prime Venture Partners In 2 answers
  19. This episode focuses specifically on how the consuming class is shifting and what that does to sizing over time. It helps you... Ideas of India, Mercatus Center Podcast · 1 hr 20 min Sajith Pai Unpacks the 2024 Indus Valley Report and the Changing Indian Consumer Shruti Rajagopalan with Sajith Pai In 2 answers
  20. Podcast · ~40 min Mastering Startup Math: TAM, CAC, Churn, LTV and more Shripati Acharya and Amit Somani, Prime Venture Partners In 2 answers
  21. Blakely built a product for a problem she experienced as a customer, with no industry background and no network in hosiery, and... NPR, How I Built This with Guy Raz Podcast · about 45 min How I Built This: Spanx, Sara Blakely Guy Raz In 2 answers
  22. Two Indian founders turned investors on what they actually weigh when funding early founders, including resilience and... The Neon Show Podcast · ~44 min VC Wisdom: Nansi & Siddhartha on Investing, Fundraising, and Growth The Neon Show (Nansi Mishra & Siddhartha Ahluwalia) In 2 answers
  23. McKenzie went from zero consulting clients to a full pipeline using direct, honest outreach with no case studies to point to,... Kalzumeus Software Podcast · 50 min audio Ramit Sethi and Patrick McKenzie on Getting Your First Consulting Client Patrick McKenzie, Ramit Sethi In 2 answers
  24. Before writing a single line of code for his fourth startup, Shreesha Ramdas hired a salesperson and ran over 200 interviews to... The Neon Show Podcast · ~50 min 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas on What to Do Before You Build Your Startup Siddhartha Ahluwalia In 2 answers

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Playbooks

A goal, and the route through it a step at a time.

Find an idea worth pursuing Spot problems worth solving and find the one that actually fits you. 4 steps Validate before you build Get real evidence people want it before you write a line of code. 4 steps Understand your customers Talk to real users, define who you're for, and read the market clearly. 4 steps From idea to first customers The idea-stage spine: find a problem, prove it, talk to customers, and land the first ten. 4 steps Build an MVP without code Ship a first version with no-code tools before you hire anyone. 4 steps Build and launch your first product Turn a validated idea into something real people can use. 6 steps Find and work with developers Hire, brief, and work with builders without getting burned. 4 steps Name and brand your startup Name it, design an identity, and say what it does in a line. 3 steps Build a landing page that converts A page that loads fast, earns trust, and turns visitors into signups. 4 steps Get your first customers The scrappy, unscalable work of going from zero to your first paying users. 5 steps Sell it yourself, founder-led Reach out, run the conversation, and close before you have a sales team. 4 steps Grow with content and SEO Compound reach with content, search, and a founder audience. 3 steps Grow with paid ads Spend that returns: the channels, metrics, and loops behind it. 4 steps Price and package your product Charge for value, package it right, and check the numbers work. 3 steps Bootstrap instead of raising Fund growth from revenue, and keep control of your company. 4 steps Raise your first round Understand the game before you pitch: whether to raise, from whom, and on what terms. 5 steps Find a co-founder, split equity Find the right partner and split equity without regret. 3 steps Set up the company right Incorporate, split equity, protect your IP, and make your first hires. 4 steps Survive founder life Mindset, burnout, the leap, and the parts nobody warns you about. 5 steps Build in India The India-specific playbook: schemes, government, enterprise, and the local market. 5 steps

The questions founders start with

I want to start a startup but I don't have an idea. Where do I even begin? Stop hunting for a billion-dollar idea and start collecting problems. The best ideas come from noticing things that annoy you or people around you ... Beginner 19 resources → What does 'validating an idea' actually mean? Validation is gathering real-world evidence that a specific group of people has a painful problem AND will change their behaviour (pay, sign up, sw... Beginner 20 resources → Do I actually need a co-founder, or can I go solo? You don't strictly need one, but the data says teams outlast solos: complementary skills, shared load, and someone to argue you out of bad calls al... Beginner 3 resources → What actually counts as an MVP, and what's the smallest one I can get away with? An MVP is the least you can build (or fake) to test your single riskiest assumption, not a shrunken version of your dream product. Ask 'what's the ... Beginner 20 resources → How do I talk to customers without them just telling me what I want to hear? Stop pitching and start interrogating their past. Ask about what they actually did last time the problem hit, what it cost them, and what they trie... Beginner 23 resources → How do I actually get my first 10 customers when nobody has heard of me? You go get them by hand, one at a time, email people you already know, people your investors/friends know, and strangers in the exact niche you're ... Beginner 19 resources → How do I decide how much to charge for my product? Stop guessing and stop pricing off your costs, price off the value the customer gets and their willingness to pay. Talk to customers about pricing,... Beginner 3 resources → Should I raise venture capital or bootstrap my startup? Raise VC only if your business needs a big pile of cash to reach escape velocity before someone else does, and if a 10x-in-a-few-years outcome is g... Beginner 3 resources →

Questions for your situation

The Aspiring Founder The Idea-Stage Founder The Builder The Launcher The Grower The Student Founder The Indie Hacker The Technical Solo Founder The Non-Technical Founder The Domain Expert The Women Founder The Anywhere Founder The Corporate Switcher The Repeat Founder
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