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 lowest cost way to watch real people use your product, no recruiting agency required. This guide walks through the coffee... Maze Article · ~9 min read What is Guerrilla Usability Testing? (And How To Do It) Maze In 2 answers
  2. From the Google Ventures team, this shows how to go from a fuzzy idea to a tested prototype in a single week. The core move is... Jake Knapp (jakeknapp.com) Book · Approx. 275 pages Sprint: Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Five Days Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky, Braden Kowitz In 2 answers
  3. Facebook's first design VP explains what design actually is beneath the surface of pretty screens. She frames it as solving a... The Year of the Looking Glass Essay · 8 minute read Why Design Julie Zhuo In 2 answers
  4. This answers the flip side of the question, how much design to do yourself versus when to bring in a real designer. It lays out... First Round Review Article · 30 minute read The Ultimate Guide to the Founding Designer Role First Round Review In 2 answers
  5. This is the single best starting point if you think design just means making things look nice. Riley wrote it as an open letter... Wells Riley Essay · 15 min read Startups, This Is How Design Works Wells Riley In 2 answers
  6. Graham argues that good design is not just personal opinion, it has real properties (simplicity, honesty, solving the hard... Paul Graham Essay · 25 min read Taste for Makers Paul Graham In 2 answers
  7. The book behind the site, and worth it if you want the reasoning, not just the rules. Yablonski walks through familiar apps and... Laws of UX Book · Approx. 150 pages Laws of UX: Using Psychology to Design Better Products and Services Jon Yablonski In 2 answers
  8. The law in the author's own words, with the reasoning and the stakes spelled out. Nielsen explains why users transfer... Jakob Nielsen (Substack) Essay · 7 min read Jakob's Law of the Internet User Experience Jakob Nielsen In 2 answers
  9. Concrete rules for writing the words on your buttons and menus so nobody has to decode them. It covers using a verb plus a noun... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~9 min read UI Copy: UX Guidelines for Command Names and Keyboard Shortcuts Anna Kaley In 2 answers
  10. A short interview where Kunal Shah argues margins come from desire, which design creates, rather than from utility alone. It is... Outlook Business Article Margins Are Earned from Desire, Not Utility, says CRED founder Kunal Shah Kunal Shah In 2 answers
  11. Kapoor, a builder at Figma, breaks down the habits that let small teams keep a fast shipping rhythm without collapsing into... Lenny's Newsletter (Mihika Kapoor) Article · 20 min read How to ship like a startup Mihika Kapoor In 2 answers
  12. A runaway roadmap is usually a list of every decent idea, and this piece is the antidote. Build half a product that is great... Basecamp (37signals) Essay · ~3 min read Getting Real: Half, Not Half-Assed Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson In 2 answers
  13. A clear tour of roadmap styles that shows exactly why a feature by date roadmap sets you up to over promise. Torres contrasts... Product Talk Article · ~15 min read Product Roadmaps: How the Best Product Teams Plan for Uncertainty Teresa Torres In 2 answers
  14. Cagan makes the sharpest version of the argument: replace a list of features with a small set of outcomes you are trying to... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · ~10 min read The Alternative to Roadmaps Marty Cagan In 2 answers
  15. A short, quotable case that the cadence at which you ship defines your company, and that shipping small and often is safer than... Intercom Blog Essay · 8 min read Shipping is your company's heartbeat Darragh Curran, Intercom In 2 answers
  16. This gives you the actual checklist a request has to clear before it earns a yes, starting with whether it fits the vision and... Intercom (Des Traynor) Essay · 10 min read Rarely say yes to feature requests Des Traynor In 2 answers
  17. Cutler names the exact trap your short answer warns about: shipping feature after feature while nobody measures whether any of... Cutle.fish Essay 12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory John Cutler In 2 answers
  18. Explains how to keep every change ready to release at any time, which is the technical backbone of a weekly staging link. It... DORA (Google Cloud) Article · ~10 min read Continuous delivery DORA (Google Cloud) In 2 answers
  19. This is the warning label for treating every customer request as a build order. Chen shows how a team can keep shipping... andrewchen.com Essay This is the Product Death Cycle Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  20. This is the canonical source for the claim that the customers you already have are far cheaper to keep than the ones a shiny... Harvard Business Review Article The Value of Keeping the Right Customers Amy Gallo In 2 answers
  21. This is the concrete how-to for collecting problems on purpose. It walks through Amy Hoy's Sales Safari method, where you... O'Reilly (Scott Hurff) Article · About 12 min read How to Create Products People Want (Sales Safari) Scott Hurff In 2 answers
  22. Savoia, a former Google innovation lead, argues most ideas fail because they were never 'the right it', and he gives you cheap... Alberto Savoia Book · 256 pages The Right It Alberto Savoia In 2 answers
  23. The most cited annual snapshot of the Indian startup and consumer economy, with hard numbers on income distribution, the thin... Blume Ventures Article · Long report Indus Valley Annual Report 2024 Sajith Pai, Anurag Pagaria, Kunal Bajaj In 2 answers
  24. Maurya names the exact failure in this question: founders ask what problems their solution can solve instead of what problems... Love the Problem (Medium) Article · ~8 min read The Problem With Problems Ash Maurya 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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