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 famous story of Airbnb flying to New York and photographing listings door to door, the most literal example of... First Round Review Article · 12 min read How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from Failing Startup to Billion Dollar Business First Round Review In 2 answers
  2. Lenny addresses prioritization specifically for early startups, where the usual scoring frameworks break down and speed matters... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read Prioritizing at startups Lenny Rachitsky In 2 answers
  3. Cohen argues the MVP framing pushes founders to ship something too broken to love, and offers an alternative: make it Simple,... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · ~12 min read Your customers hate MVPs. Make a SLC instead. Jason Cohen In 2 answers
  4. The father of customer development argues that your plan survives contact with reality only after you leave your desk and test... steveblank.com Article · 10 min read Teaching Entrepreneurship by Getting Out of the Building Steve Blank In 2 answers
  5. It is worth reading an honest account of the limits, and this one is notable for coming from a no-code platform itself. It... Bubble Blog Article The Real Drawbacks of No-Code Software Bubble In 2 answers
  6. A tactical, budget-specific walkthrough of running a real landing-page test with a small paid-traffic spend so your numbers are... GrowthMentor Article · 15 min read How to Validate Your Startup Idea Using a Pre-Launch Landing Page and Under $500 in Ads Foti Panagiotakopoulos In 2 answers
  7. For the refactoring half of your question, Fowler explains why building for imagined future needs usually costs more than it... martinfowler.com Article · 10 min read Yagni (You Aren't Gonna Need It) Martin Fowler In 2 answers
  8. Doshi names the IKEA effect, how you overvalue what you built simply because you built it, which is the quiet engine behind... Shreyas Doshi (Substack) Essay · 12 min read The Product Builder's True Journey Shreyas Doshi In 2 answers
  9. Flipkart serves exactly your users, many on 2G in smaller Indian cities, and this case study shows a fast mobile web app... web.dev (Google) Article Flipkart triples time-on-site with a Progressive Web App web.dev (Google) In 2 answers
  10. A first hand engineering account of why Flipkart, an app first Indian company, rebuilt the mobile web to reach users on weak... Medium (Progressive Web Apps) Article Building Flipkart Lite: A Progressive Web App Aditya Punjani In 2 answers
  11. Chen lays out the clearest early signal that people actually value your product: do cohorts keep coming back over time. He... andrewchen.com Essay · Medium read How to measure if users love your product using cohorts and revisit rates Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  12. Chen names the hard side of the network, the users who create most of the value and are hardest to win, and shows how to reach... Andrew Chen Book · ~368 pages The Cold Start Problem Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  13. Often the urge to rebuild comes from one abstraction that no longer fits, not from the whole codebase. Metz explains why a... sandimetz.com Essay · 8 min read The Wrong Abstraction Sandi Metz In 2 answers
  14. This is the practical manual for improving code you are afraid to touch, without a rewrite. Feathers gives you techniques to... Prentice Hall (Robert C. Martin Series) Book · 456 pages Working Effectively with Legacy Code Michael C. Feathers In 2 answers
  15. Beck argues for small, cheap tidyings over grand restructurings, and gives you a way to reason about when cleanup is worth it.... O'Reilly Media (Kent Beck) Book · 120 pages Tidy First? A Personal Exercise in Empirical Software Design Kent Beck In 2 answers
  16. The canonical case that you can reshape a system in safe, small steps rather than one dramatic rewrite. Fowler shows how to... martinfowler.com Book · 448 pages Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code (2nd Edition) Martin Fowler In 2 answers
  17. A balanced walkthrough of when building in public helps and when staying quiet is smarter, without pushing you either way. It... Mercury Article · ~10 min read Building in public: Is this the right approach for your startup? Mercury In 2 answers
  18. An honest breakdown of what a no-code MVP actually costs once you add hosting, tool subscriptions, and paid tiers, so the... Ptolemay Article · ~10 min read The real cost of no-code MVPs Ptolemay In 2 answers
  19. Chen frames the exact trap you are in: pouring signups into a bucket that leaks, where more acquisition just wastes more water.... Andrew Chen Essay · 10 min read Is Your Website a Leaky Bucket? 4 Scenarios for User Retention Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  20. A single average retention number hides whether you have a small core of people who love the product, which is the seed you... Andrew Chen Essay · 12 min read The Power User Curve Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  21. If your diagnosis points at onboarding, this is the deepest single piece on fixing it, from the growth lead behind Pinterest... Casey Winters (Casey Accidental) Essay · 15 min read Why Onboarding is the Most Crucial Part of Your Growth Strategy Casey Winters In 2 answers
  22. A structured, play-by-play guide from a founder who hit the non-technical wall herself, then learned to build with no-code. It... Practical Inspiration Publishing Book · ~250 pages The No-Code Startup: The Complete Guide to Building Apps Without Code Emma Reilly In 2 answers
  23. Many founders fear that no-code will make them look unserious to investors, and this piece tackles that head on. It gives you... Bubble Article · ~10 min read How to Explain Your No-Code Tech Stack to Investors Bubble In 2 answers
  24. This is the two sentence post that named the whole category you are deciding about, from an OpenAI co-founder. Read it to... Andrej Karpathy (X) Thread · 1 min read The original "vibe coding" tweet Andrej Karpathy In 2 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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