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. A practical walkthrough of building only the button or menu item for a feature that does not exist yet, then measuring who... Amplitude Article · ~10 min read What Is Fake Door Testing: Methods and Best Practices Amplitude
  2. This is a reference document more than a read: thirty concrete before and after examples of leading questions rewritten into... CXL Article · 15 minute read Leading Questions: Definition, Types and 30 Examples CXL
  3. This walks through Jobs to Be Done interviewing, which is built entirely around reconstructing a real past decision rather than... CXL Article · 18 minute read Customer Interviews: How to Use the Jobs-to-Be-Done Framework CXL
  4. This is the academic name and definition for exactly the failure mode in the question: people systematically overstate what... Catalog of Bias Article · 3 minute read Hypothetical bias Catalog of Bias
  5. A short, practical rewrite guide showing three specific question types to swap in for what do you want, each anchored to... Medium Essay · 5 minute read Never Ask What They Want: 3 Better Questions to Ask in User Interviews Chuck Liu
  6. Garbugli, a three-time B2B founder, lays out the actual questions to ask about business drivers, pain intensity, and who owns... Lean Startup Digest (Medium) Essay · 10 min read B2B Customer Discovery Interview Questions: A Master List Etienne Garbugli
  7. If you're selling to businesses rather than consumers, this book adapts customer development to the messier reality of... leanb2bbook.com Book · ~280 pages Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want Etienne Garbugli
  8. Recruiting is often the actual hard part of this problem, not the conversation itself. This gives you the tactics NN/g uses... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 20 min read How to Recruit Participants for Usability Studies Nielsen Norman Group
  9. A short, practical answer to the recruitment problem this question is really asking about: where do I even find these people.... Lean Startup Co. Article · 8 min read We Can't Find Customers to Interview. Now What? Lean Startup Co.
  10. Lemkin lays out a specific, staged interview count for B2B SaaS founders: the first five to map the space, the next five to... SaaStr Article · ~10 min read Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don't Forget the 20 Interview Rule Jason Lemkin
  11. Portigal has run professional research interviews for over 25 years, and this book is the deeper craft manual once you have the... portigal.com Book Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights Steve Portigal
  12. This is a real thread of solo and small team founders admitting the exact fear in your question, and working through it... Indie Hackers Thread I'm afraid to talk to customers/prospects, and it's holding me back Indie Hackers
  13. Blank's own blog distills the argument from his book into a short, free read: most startups don't fail on execution, they fail... steveblank.com Essay The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution Steve Blank
  14. A pre-seed fund's practical checklist for what real validation looks like before you write code, insisting on quantified... Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons) Article How to Validate Your Startup With Customers Before Building Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons)
  15. A long comment thread of founders and operators arguing through the vitamin versus painkiller framing with their own real... Hacker News Thread Vitamin vs painkiller discussion thread Hacker News
  16. Built around the well known CB Insights statistic, this piece is refreshingly concrete about what evidence to look for, an... The VC Lens Essay 42% of Startups Fail Due to No Real Market Need, Here's How to Solve That Sayanee Bhowmik
  17. A roundup of concrete advice from Indian investors and mentors, and the standout point for this question is direct: founders... YourStory Article Idea Validation: 20 Startup Tips From the TiE Bangalore Mentor Clinic YourStory
  18. Traynor's rule that you should never ask for feedback you are not prepared to act on is exactly the discipline the short answer... Intercom Blog Essay · 8 min read 3 rules for customer feedback Des Traynor
  19. This is the companion piece that explains why the context around a piece of feedback (who said it, when, and in what mood)... Intercom Blog Article · 7 min read The when and where of product feedback Des Traynor
  20. Doshi tells a visual, concrete story about a team that built for a problem customers said they had, but that was never actually... X (Twitter) Thread · 5 min read Destined to Fail: A B2B Product Management Story Shreyas Doshi
  21. April Dunford wrote the modern playbook on positioning, and this exercise is the fastest way to see how target customer... aprildunford.com Essay · 10 min read A Product Positioning Exercise April Dunford
  22. Kyle Poyar writes for people running go to market at growth stage B2B companies, so this piece is useful once your ICP needs to... Growth Unhinged Essay · 12 min read ICP marketing done right Kyle Poyar
  23. This is a clean, no nonsense definition written for enterprise founders, distinguishing ICP (the company), buyer (who decides),... Unusual Ventures Field Guide Article · 8 min read What is an ideal customer profile? Unusual Ventures Field Guide
  24. Lincoln Murphy is one of the people credited with popularizing the term ideal customer profile in SaaS, and this framework goes... Sixteen Ventures Article · 25 min read Ideal Customer Profile Framework Lincoln Murphy

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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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