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. Steli Efti explains how Close.io picked startups and small businesses doing inside sales as their ICP because it was a market... Inside Intercom Podcast · 40 min Understanding your ideal customers and how to sell to them Steli Efti In 2 answers
  2. Ashu Garg, a general partner at Foundation Capital who has backed companies like Databricks, talks specifically about why... The Neon Show Podcast · 55 min Ashu Garg, Foundation Capital on The Neon Show Ashu Garg In 2 answers
  3. Aditya Tulsian built Numberz for Indian small businesses before it was acquired by Chargebee, and this episode is a blunt,... SaaSBoomi Podcast Podcast · 45 min 'Ideal Customer Profile' Truth Bombs, with Aditya Tulsian Aditya Tulsian In 2 answers
  4. This episode is the audio companion to a16z's written ICP framework, useful specifically for the moment your company has grown... a16z Podcast Podcast · 35 min Do You Really Know Your ICP? Why It Matters and How to Find Out a16z Podcast In 2 answers
  5. This compilation centers on ServiceChannel's real story of narrowing 'retail' down to a small set of exact target companies... Not Another CEO (ICP Compilation) Podcast The customer segments hiding in your own data Not Another CEO (ICP Compilation) In 2 answers
  6. The audio version of YC's user-interview classic, ideal for founders on the go. We include it as an alternate format for the... Spotify Podcast · ~35 min How to Talk to Users with Gustaf Alstromer | Startup School Y Combinator
  7. Asia's largest volunteer-driven community of product leaders and founders, with talks, a podcast, and events packed with... The Product Folks Podcast · community + podcast + events The Product Folks (India's product & GTM community) The Product Folks
  8. This is a working investor's honest read on when deep industry knowledge is a real edge and when it is just familiarity. It is... Wildfire Labs (Startup Stories from the Treehouse) Podcast · ~40 min The Rise of the Domain Expert Founder: Why Industry Insiders Are Winning the Startup Game Todd Gagne and Mike Vetter
  9. DeHaat did not start with a clever app, it started with founders registering farmers on paper and pen, then earned market... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~40 min How AgriTech is Evolving in India with Shashank Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO DeHaat Shashank Kumar (with host Gaurav Ranjan)
  10. Pieter Levels is the clearest working example of running an idea pipeline instead of waiting for one perfect idea. In this... Indie Hackers Podcast Podcast · ~60 min Confronting Your Fears and Taking a Leap with Pieter Levels of Nomad List Courtland Allen
  11. This is the canonical conversation on why people give you nice-sounding feedback you cannot trust, with Rob Fitzpatrick (author... The Art of Product Podcast Podcast · About 45 minutes The Mom Test with Rob Fitzpatrick (The Art of Product, Ep. 90) Derrick Reimer and Ben Orenstein (hosts), with Rob Fitzpatrick
  12. Elena Verna has built growth at SurveyMonkey, Miro, and others, and this episode is a founder-level walkthrough of exactly the... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 16 minutes The ultimate guide to product-led sales (Elena Verna) Lenny Rachitsky with Elena Verna
  13. A real founder talking through the exact tension in this question: Michael built PgMustard for a market rather than only... Indie Bites (the Indie Hackers short-form sister podcast) Podcast · ~20 minute episode The slow and steady path to growth (Michael Christofides, PgMustard) James McKinven (host), Michael Christofides (guest)
  14. This is a long-running India-first founder show where operators walk through how they actually won ground here, including going... Indian Silicon Valley Podcast Podcast · Episodes ~60 to 90 min Indian Silicon Valley with Jivraj Singh Sachar Jivraj Singh Sachar
  15. Courtland Allen founded Indie Hackers, so he has watched hundreds of small, bootstrapped founders pick niches and live with the... Software Engineering Unlocked Podcast · Approx. 45 min listen Start a Profitable Business in Six Weeks with Courtland Allen Michaela Greiler (host), Courtland Allen (guest)
  16. This is an operator being honest about the exact trap in your question: you win your first segment, then find the second one is... The SaaS Podcast (SaaS Club) Podcast Vertical SaaS: 80 Doctors to 1,000 Customers (Zak Holdsworth, Hint Health) Omer Khan (host), with Zak Holdsworth
  17. This is the deepest library of Indian SaaS founder conversations, and founders here talk openly about the messy realities of... SaaSBoomi Podcast · Episodes ~30 to 60 min SaaSBoomi Podcast Suresh Sambandam, Arvind Parthiban, Varun Shoor
  18. In 1996 search was a backwater and the dominant portals (Yahoo, AOL) treated it as a commodity feature to outsource. Google... Acquired Podcast · About 3 to 4 hours Google: The Origin of Search (Acquired) Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
  19. Andy Budd is a designer turned VC, and this show is built around the precise question of what design is worth before you have... The Design VC (Apple Podcasts) Podcast · Episodes run roughly 45 to 60 minutes The Design VC Andy Budd
  20. Pieter Levels has shipped 70-plus projects entirely solo, so this is a candid, lived account of staying in motion while wearing... Indie Hackers Podcast (levels.io) Podcast · ~2 hour interview (two parts) Money, happiness and productivity as a solo founder (Pieter Levels) Courtland Allen and Pieter Levels
  21. A short, honest conversation between two founders who lived this choice, with Jodie Cook admitting she named her agency after... The Futur Podcast · 19 min listen Should You Name Your Business After Yourself? w/ Jodie Cook (Ep 423) Chris Do
  22. Amelia Sordell runs a personal-branding agency and frames the founder brand and the company brand as sisters, not twins, which... JUST Branding Podcast Podcast · approx 50 min Founder Branding: Why People Trust People Before Companies (with Amelia Sordell) Jacob Cass and Matt Davies (with Amelia Sordell)
  23. Hosted by Arvind Pani, co-founder of Reverie (a language-tech company built precisely to serve non-English India), this show is... Reverie Language Technologies Podcast Building for Bharat (podcast by Reverie Language Technologies) Arvind Pani
  24. A calm, forward-looking conversation with an SEO advisor who has worked with Zapier, Tinder, and Coinbase, aimed squarely at... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · ~1 hr 15 min Rethinking SEO in the age of AI (Eli Schwartz) Lenny Rachitsky with Eli Schwartz

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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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