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. The single best thing ever written on customer conversations. It teaches you to ask about the customer's life and past... momtestbook.com Book · ~130 pages The Mom Test Rob Fitzpatrick In 196 answers
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham In 122 answers
  3. The definitive essay on where good ideas come from: notice problems you personally have, don't force it. Use it as the lens for... paulgraham.com Essay · ~20 min read How to Get Startup Ideas Paul Graham In 87 answers
  4. Turns the vague feeling of product-market fit into a number you can move. Ask users how they would feel if they could no longer... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit Rahul Vohra In 76 answers
  5. The essay that put 'product-market fit' into the startup vocabulary. Read it for the gut-level description of what PMF feels... pmarchive.com Essay · ~15 min read The Only Thing That Matters Marc Andreessen In 54 answers
  6. A tactical follow-on covering the channels and motions top B2B startups scale after the first ten. Grounds distribution... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 B2B customers Lenny Rachitsky In 41 answers
  7. The authoritative handbook on founder-led sales, written for technical/first-time sellers building B2B SaaS. Readable free... foundingsales.com Book · book (~400 pages) Founding Sales: The Early Stage Go-to-Market Handbook Peter Kazanjy In 35 answers
  8. The cleanest distillation of the one framework that turns a customer chat into a relationship instead of a survey. The three... Sachin Rekhi's Blog Article · 10 min read A Primer on Talking to Customers From Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test Sachin Rekhi In 32 answers
  9. The origin text for the modern MVP and validated-learning vocabulary every founder now uses. Read it for the mental model that... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries In 27 answers
  10. Basecamp's battle-tested, opinionated system for shipping meaningful work in fixed cycles without endless backlogs, a primary... Basecamp / 37signals Book · free online book Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters Ryan Singer In 27 answers
  11. A short, practical field guide to customer discovery: who to talk to, how to find them, and how many. Pairs perfectly with The... talkingtohumans.com Book · ~80 pages (free PDF available) Talking to Humans Giff Constable In 25 answers
  12. Entering an unfamiliar industry means you cannot see the walls and dead ends that veterans already know. Dixon explains that a... cdixon.org Essay · short read The Idea Maze Chris Dixon In 23 answers
  13. Altman's condensed operating manual for founders, including sharp guidance on focus, spending your time on what only you can... playbook.samaltman.com Article · long Startup Playbook Sam Altman In 22 answers
  14. When your first ten will come from cold outreach, this guide gives you the full mechanics: building a target list, qualifying,... Close Article · Multi-chapter guide The Ultimate Startup Guide to Outbound Sales Steli Efti In 22 answers
  15. Todd Jackson studied how dozens of now-large companies validated their very first idea. The pattern that repeats: deliver the... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to Validate Your Startup Idea Todd Jackson In 21 answers
  16. Free to read online, with chapters like "Build Less" and "Half, Not Half-Assed" that name your exact trap. It argues that... Basecamp / 37signals Book · Free online, ~4 hr Getting Real (free to read online) Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson (37signals) In 20 answers
  17. Thiel pushes you to look for ideas hidden in plain sight by asking what important truth very few people agree with you on. It... Peter Thiel and Blake Masters Book · About 220 pages Zero to One Peter Thiel and Blake Masters In 20 answers
  18. This is the canonical argument that you do not need a mass market to build something real, you need a small number of people... The Technium (kk.org) Essay · ~15 min read 1,000 True Fans Kevin Kelly In 19 answers
  19. This is the canonical source of the ship-ugly-first idea, the LinkedIn co-founder's own essay behind the line about being... LinkedIn Essay · About a 6 minute read If There Aren't Any Typos In This Essay, We Launched Too Late Reid Hoffman In 19 answers
  20. 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 19 answers
  21. A step-by-step guide to running discovery when you have almost no data, aimed squarely at first-time founders. It is practical... First Round Review Article · 15 min read A Founder's Guide for Successful Early-Stage Customer Discovery Jeanette Mellinger In 19 answers
  22. The book that gave the world 'MVP', 'build-measure-learn', and 'validated learning'. It reframes a startup as a series of... theleanstartup.com Book · ~330 pages The Lean Startup Eric Ries In 18 answers
  23. 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 18 answers
  24. The standard modern playbook for keeping discovery continuous so roadmap decisions stay grounded in real customer input, not... Product Talk Book · ~240 pages Continuous Discovery Habits Teresa Torres In 17 answers

Show the next 24

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 24 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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