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.

The full book behind the Bullseye essay above, with nineteen traction channels laid out and worked examples of testing them... Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares Book · ~200 pages Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares
Krish Subramanian describes trying to serve all customers early on, losing the specific insight Chargebee was actually built... YourStory Article · ~10 min read How Chargebee stayed focused before expanding customer segments YourStory
The foundational marketing text on owning a specific position in a specific customer's mind rather than trying to be relevant... Al Ries and Jack Trout Book · ~200 pages Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind Al Ries, Jack Trout
Revella more or less codified the term "buyer persona" for B2B, and this free manifesto is her own definition, not someone... Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute Essay The Buyer Persona Manifesto Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute
A clean, direct side by side of the two terms our question is about, written for people who actually have to use both in a... Total Product Marketing Article ICP vs. Buyer Persona: What's the Difference? Total Product Marketing
Close built its whole early sales motion around a narrow ICP, and this guide gives you the actual firmographic fields (company... Close Article How to Create an Ideal Customer Profile for B2B Leads (ICP Guide) Close
Graham lays out why the users who need you most, not the ones who are easiest to please, are the ones worth building for. It... Paul Graham Essay What I've Learned from Users Paul Graham
Blank argues that market definition, not just customer interviews, is the step founders skip, and that getting it wrong is what... Steve Blank Essay How to Find a Market? Use Jobs to be Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery Steve Blank
A direct argument for why the customer is not always right for you, with a framework for deciding which accounts are quietly... Harvard Business Review Article It's Time to Fire Some of Your Customers Anthony K. Tjan
Lays out concrete criteria for recognizing a customer relationship that will not get better, so you are not relying on gut feel... Harvard Business Review Article When and Why to Part Ways with a Customer Lior Arussy
Traynor breaks down knowing your customer into two concrete questions, who they are and how they decide, instead of a vague... Intercom Article Know Your Customers and How They Decide Des Traynor
This lays out the bullseye idea explicitly: most durable products start at the center of a tight, specific market and expand... Reforge Article · 15 min read The 4 Growth Frameworks You Need to Build a $100M Product Reforge
Written from the perspective of bootstrapped founders who do not have the luxury of burning cash to reach a broad market, this... Indie Hackers Article · 10 min read How to Identify a Micro-Niche That's Perfect for SaaS Founders Indie Hackers
The clearest definition of what a persona actually is and is not, from the field that invented the term. It draws the line... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~10 min read Personas Make Users Memorable Nielsen Norman Group
Written by a company that built its CRM specifically for SMB focused sales teams, this is blunt about what changes when your... Close blog Article · 15 min read SMB Sales Strategy: How to Sell to SMB Customers Close
Blume pulled lessons from vertical SaaS companies that succeeded by narrowing to one workflow within one type of small... Blume Ventures Essay · 20 min read The Vertical SaaS Secret Playsheet Blume Ventures
This is close to a direct answer to your exact question, written by a product discovery coach who works with B2B teams every... Product Talk Essay Ask Teresa: What if Your Buyers Aren't Your Users? Teresa Torres
Yoon gives you three concrete tactics for the exact gap in your question: reaching a buyer who is not the one feeling the daily... Harvard Business Review Article How to Market a Product When Your Buyer Isn't Your User Eddie Yoon
Written for exactly the founder-market moment you are in: a developer or junior employee uses your product, someone above them... Founder Labs (Substack) Essay How to Sell if Your User is not the Buyer Nate Ritter
Rothman untangles three roles founders often blur together: buyer, user, and customer (the one who signs a contract but never... jrothman.com Essay Who to Satisfy? Differentiate Buyers, Users, and Customers for Effective Product Decisions Johanna Rothman
This is the product-led growth counter-argument to old-school enterprise sales: design and market for the user first, and let... OpenView Article Why You Should Sell to Users, Not Buyers: A Product-Led Approach to Marketing Ashley Murphy
If your answer is going to be 'follow the money,' this gives you the vocabulary sales teams use to actually find that person.... MEDDICC Article The Economic Buyer MEDDICC
Postman, founded in Bangalore, is a clean example of designing entirely for the individual developer-user first and only later... Stack Overflow Blog Article Postman's journey and unlocking the power of APIs Abhinav Asthana (interview)
Shapiro's method, asking 100 people representative of your guessed audience whether they'd put down a cash deposit, is a fast,... julian.com Article · about 10 min read Market Pull (Startup Handbook) Julian Shapiro

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 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

eChai Partner Brands The partnership →