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. This is the founder-depression piece written for the Indian context, and it earns its place by pairing raw first-hand accounts... Inc42 Article · 15 min read Breaking Taboos: Dear Founders, It's Time To Speak Up About Mental Health Inc42 Staff, with psychotherapist Deepti Singhal In 3 answers
  2. The strain at home usually comes from a moving target: your family cannot tell whether you will grind on this forever. This... First Round Review Article · 25 min read Grit or Quit? Tactical Advice for Founders Facing Tough Company-Building Decisions First Round Review (with Annie Duke) In 3 answers
  3. This is the explainer that reframes government as the biggest buyer in India and shows procurement as real non-dilutive money,... Invest India Article · 10 min read Easing Public Procurement for Startups Invest India In 3 answers
  4. The free notes behind Zero to One, centered on the contrarian question, 'what important truth do very few people agree with you... blakemasters.tumblr.com Essay · long form, multiple lectures Peter Thiel's CS183 Startup Course Notes Peter Thiel and Blake Masters In 3 answers
  5. A builder to builder account from someone who ran the test on their own idea, with the honest distinction that a landing page... Indie Hackers Article · ~8 min read Validate your idea with a landing page before you validate your product James Fleischmann In 3 answers
  6. GV's method for building a realistic facade and testing it with five target customers in a single week, which is the interview... GV (Google Ventures) Article · ~15 min read plus resources The Design Sprint Jake Knapp In 3 answers
  7. Once you decide supply is the harder side to get, this piece is the tactical playbook for signing up those first suppliers by... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~25 min read How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business (Part 3): Growing Initial Supply Lenny Rachitsky In 3 answers
  8. This lays out a cheap, staged way to test whether an idea has real pull before you build anything, which maps directly onto... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read The Minimum Viable Testing Process for Evaluating Startup Ideas Gagan Biyani In 3 answers
  9. If you do not want to read the whole book, this is Ries in his own words defining the MVP in a few pages. His guiding rule is... Eric Ries (Medium) Article The Minimum Viable Product: A Primer Eric Ries In 3 answers
  10. Torres makes the single most important move concrete: instead of asking what people generally do, ask them to tell you about a... Product Talk Article · 15 min read Story-Based Customer Interviews Uncover Much-Needed Context Teresa Torres In 3 answers
  11. A short, clear framing of the difference between a nice to have and a must have. It helps you honestly ask whether people would... Forbes Article · ~7 min read Is Your Startup Building a Vitamin or a Painkiller? George Deeb In 3 answers
  12. A short research backed breakdown of how three marketplace giants solved the cold start problem by hand. You will see that all... Harvard Business School Working Knowledge Article · 8 min read How Uber, Airbnb, and Etsy Attracted Their First 1,000 Customers Michael Blanding In 3 answers
  13. A short, honest essay arguing that cold outbound is both a strong demand signal and a skill you will need anyway. It counters... Pascal Unger (pascalsnotes.substack.com) Essay · ~10 min read Cold Outbound is Under-Appreciated Pascal Unger In 3 answers
  14. Written specifically for engineers who would rather ship code than sell. McKenzie, a developer who bootstrapped his own... Kalzumeus Essay · approx 20 min read Marketing Software, For People Who Would Rather Be Building It Patrick McKenzie In 3 answers
  15. Cagan draws a sharp line that saves founders real pain: the thing you use to test a hypothesis is an experiment, not a product... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · 6 min read Minimum Viable Product Marty Cagan In 3 answers
  16. This is the practical, step-by-step manual for the Lean Startup ideas, built around the one-page Lean Canvas and a system for... LeanFoundry Book · 240 pages Running Lean: Iterate from Plan A to a Plan That Works Ash Maurya In 3 answers
  17. A clear, jargon-free explainer that corrects the most common misuse of the term, where teams ship a broken product and call it... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read Minimum Viable Product (MVP): Definition Sara Paul In 3 answers
  18. If you do not want to buy the whole Traction book yet, this free essay gives you the core method in one sitting. It shows how... Gabriel Weinberg (Medium) Essay · 15 min read The Bullseye Framework for Getting Traction Gabriel Weinberg In 3 answers
  19. Beck, a foundational voice in software, adds useful nuance about what minimal really means and why teams so often get it wrong.... Tidy First (Kent Beck) Essay · ~1,000 words Minimum Viable Product Revisited Kent Beck In 3 answers
  20. This gives you the sharpest rule for the build versus buy call: if it is a core business function, build it yourself, and if it... Joel on Software Essay · 10 min read In Defense of Not-Invented-Here Syndrome Joel Spolsky In 3 answers
  21. This is the canonical case for building less, and its chapters Build Less and Underdo Your Competition speak straight to your... 37signals Book · Short book, readable online Getting Real Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson In 3 answers
  22. This one line from LinkedIn's co founder is the mindset that makes buying infrastructure feel safe: the first version is meant... Reid Hoffman (X) Thread · 1 min If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late Reid Hoffman In 3 answers
  23. Concrete, field-tested advice on deciding which debt to pay and how to justify it. Orosz and Franco share practical rules of... The Pragmatic Engineer Article · 20 min read Paying down tech debt Gergely Orosz and Lou Franco In 3 answers
  24. A clear, tool by tool guide to turning an idea into a working prototype in minutes, aimed at people who do not code. It sorts... Lenny's Newsletter Article · 25 min read A guide to AI prototyping for product managers Colin Matthews In 3 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 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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