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 line "working software over comprehensive documentation" is the whole defense against a developer building the wrong... agilemanifesto.org Essay Manifesto for Agile Software Development Kent Beck, Martin Fowler, and 15 co-authors
  2. This names the exact risk you are worried about: when one person is the only human who understands your codebase, your bus... Forbes Technology Council Article · About a 6 minute read Survive The Bus Factor: Strategies For Protecting Your Codebase Adam Tornhill
  3. Most writing on this topic is either solo developers are heroes or never do it, and this essay refuses both. It walks through... Simple Programmer Essay · About a 7 minute read The Pros and Cons of One-Person Software Development John Sonmez
  4. The paid trial task is the single most honest way to judge a developer when you cannot read their code yourself, and this piece... Failory Article · ~10 min read Try Before You Hire: The Work Trial Nicolas Cerdeira
  5. When referrals are not available, you have to manufacture signal yourself, and this is the canonical piece on doing that... Y Combinator Essay · ~15 min read How to Hire Your First Engineer Harj Taggar
  6. When you inherit a build from an agency, this walks through exactly what an independent technical review examines: code quality... Codacy Blog Article · About a 12 minute read Technical Due Diligence for Startups: A Complete Guide Codacy
  7. This piece is useful because it separates the question of who owns the tech stack from job titles and points it at the real... platvix.com Article · ~10 min read Technical Cofounder vs CTO Hire: What to Do If You Are Non-Technical Platvix
  8. Samuel Hulick tears down real onboarding flows slide by slide, and the Slack one shows how a product teaches itself inside the... UserOnboard Essay · 79-slide teardown, ~20 min How Slack Onboards New Users (User Onboarding Teardown) Samuel Hulick
  9. This is the honest counterweight to just copying everything: it lays out exactly when breaking a convention earns its keep and... Laws of UX Article · 8 min read Familiar vs Novel Jon Yablonski
  10. Use this as the checklist you run before you ship. It walks through 18 specific tells that make an early product feel amateur... mockflow.com Article · Long read, 18 mistakes plus a pre-ship checklist 18 Common UI Design Mistakes and How to Fix Them MockFlow
  11. If Few's book is the deep dive, this is the practical checklist you can act on this afternoon. It walks through visual... UXPin Studio Blog Article · ~15 min read Dashboard Design Principles: The Definitive Guide UXPin
  12. If you cannot yet get your agency or freelancers to ship weekly, the usual reason is the work reaches them half-defined. This... Designli Article · ~12 min read How to Write a Feature Brief: A Guide for Non-Technical SaaS Founders Keith Shields
  13. This is the fullest, most honest version of the Reid Hoffman line you have heard quoted ("if you're not embarrassed by the... Next Big Idea Club Essay · ~6 min read The Entrepreneur's Greatest Asset: Embarrassment Eric Ries
  14. "Ship ugly" and "wait until it's good" are not the only two options, and this piece gives you the vocabulary to tell them... Eleken Article · ~8 min read MLP vs MVP: Which Should You Build First (and Why)? Eleken
  15. This is the cleanest answer we have found to your exact question: it names five buckets a roadmap actually pulls from (new... Intercom Essay Where do product roadmaps come from? Paul Adams
  16. Once you accept that not every bug earns roadmap time, you need a repeatable way to decide which ones do, and this piece lays... Plane Article Bug triage process: How to run it and what to prioritise Sneha Kanojia
  17. This is the book that gives you a discipline for the problem: build only to test a specific hypothesis, then measure and learn... Crown Business Book · About 336 pages The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Eric Ries
  18. This is the rare sunset guide that walks through a real decision, Pendo retiring its own Trends report when usage fell to about... Pendo Article · About 8 minute read How to effectively remove and retire a feature from your product Mei Luo
  19. Gupta's core argument is the mental unlock most founders need: teams are wired to add because launches get rewarded and... Product Growth (Aakash Gupta) Essay · About 15 minute read Addition by Subtraction: The Art of Killing Features Aakash Gupta
  20. Patrick McKenzie is one of the clearest writers on the line between bespoke work and a repeatable product, and this essay maps... Kalzumeus Essay What Consulting Companies Can Learn From Product Companies Patrick McKenzie (patio11)
  21. Written by a startup CTO, this is the clearest short piece on the exact shift you are facing: the moment it stops being just... Jake Spracher (startup CTO, ex-Apple) Article · 8 to 10 min read Code Review for Startups Jake Spracher
  22. This is the rare piece that actually answers the numbers question instead of hand-waving. It tells you to build a pipeline of... justinmckelvey.com Article · ~20 min read Founder-Led Sales: Close Your First 50 Customers Justin McKelvey
  23. Walbaum ran ops at Uber, Meta, and Rippling, so he writes from the exact judgment call in the question: when has the manual... The Operator's Handbook Article How to win by doing things that don't scale Torsten Walbaum
  24. If the word selling makes you flinch, this essay meets you there. Roy is an engineer who reframes sales as problem solving with... Engineering Sales (Substack) Essay · Short read, roughly 10 minutes I'm Not a Sales Guy. I'm an Engineer Who Learned How to Sell David Roy

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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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