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 two ways to fake a product while you test real demand. Do the work by hand in the open (concierge), or hide the manual work... LogRocket Article · ~12 min read Concierge vs. Wizard of Oz MVP LogRocket In 12 answers
  2. To say no to the right requests you need feedback you can trust, and this shows how to get it by watching customers rather than... First Round Review Article · 12 min read Get in the Van and Other Tips for Getting Meaningful Customer Feedback Michael Sippey In 12 answers
  3. Lenny interviewed founders of Gong, Notion, Figma, Amplitude, Retool and more to trace where their idea actually came from. The... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About 15 min read How the Most Successful B2B Startups Came Up With Their Original Idea Lenny Rachitsky In 12 answers
  4. A short, pointed essay on why the best ideas grow organically out of the founder's own life and knowledge, the essence of... paulgraham.com Article · ~5 min read Organic Startup Ideas Paul Graham In 11 answers
  5. The foundational text of customer development, 'get out of the building' started here and became the backbone of the Lean... steveblank.com Book · ~370 pages The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win Steve Blank In 11 answers
  6. The research-backed classic on consultative selling, the antidote to 'pushy salesperson' instincts. Its... McGraw-Hill Book · book (~200 pages) SPIN Selling Neil Rackham In 11 answers
  7. Battle-tested YC advice on landing your critical first engineering hire, from founders who've done it at scale. It reframes... YC Startup Library Article · Essay How to hire your first engineer (YC Startup Library) Y Combinator (Greg Brockman, Harj Taggar) In 11 answers
  8. The essay that explains why one badly-placed meeting can destroy a founder's entire day of building, and what to do about it.... paulgraham.com Article · short Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule Paul Graham In 11 answers
  9. This is the founder essay that made the case for validating before you build, from the person who did it with Buffer. Gascoigne... Medium (Joel Gascoigne, co-founder of Buffer) Essay How to successfully validate your idea with a Landing Page MVP Joel Gascoigne In 11 answers
  10. Most first 100 users advice is vague. This piece is the opposite: it groups the real cold start tactics into seven concrete... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About a 15 minute read How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
  11. If you are selling to companies rather than consumers, this is the specific playbook. Four concrete ways founders got signal... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~12 min read How to Validate Your B2B Startup Idea Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
  12. Once you are testing an idea, this piece gives you concrete signals that tell you whether it is actually working, from... Lenny's Newsletter Article · about 15 min read How to Know If You've Got Product-Market Fit Lenny Rachitsky In 11 answers
  13. The nuanced counterweight: PMF isn't a single binary moment, it can be lost, and 'market' is doing more work than founders... a16z.com Article · ~20 min read 12 Things About Product-Market Fit Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) In 10 answers
  14. Design tactics written specifically for developers and non-designers who need to ship good-looking UI without a design... refactoringui.com Book · ~250 pages Refactoring UI Adam Wathan & Steve Schoger In 10 answers
  15. Julian Shapiro's growth handbook frames brand and messaging as downstream of who you're for and what you replace, practical... julian.com Article · 20 min read Positioning (Startup Handbook: brand and marketing foundations) Julian Shapiro In 10 answers
  16. The most quoted essay on the mechanics of fundraising, distilled from YC Demo Day advice. It reframes fundraising as a sales... paulgraham.com Article · 45 min read How to Raise Money Paul Graham In 10 answers
  17. Currier's whole argument is that founder-market fit is more than the one line on a resume that says 'domain expert'. He breaks... NFX Article · ~12 min read The 4 Signs of Founder-Market Fit James Currier In 10 answers
  18. This is the canonical piece that put jobs to be done on the map, written by the people who coined it. It uses the famous... Harvard Business Review Article · ~20 min read Know Your Customers' Jobs to Be Done Clayton Christensen et al. In 10 answers
  19. The book that coined get out of the building and launched the customer development movement. Blank's core claim is that a... Wiley Book The Four Steps to the Epiphany Steve Blank In 10 answers
  20. Your first filter is whether this is a problem you understand, and this short essay is the clearest statement of why that... cdixon.org Essay · ~5 min read Founder/Market Fit Chris Dixon In 10 answers
  21. The primary-source telling of the milkshake story, the single most memorable illustration of Jobs to Be Done, straight from... HBS Working Knowledge Article · ~8 min read Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing Clayton Christensen (via Harvard Business School) In 9 answers
  22. The most practical guide to investor updates, from a company that exists purely to help founders send them. Concrete structure... Visible.vc Article · 15 min read How to Write the Perfect Investor Update (Tips and Templates) Visible.vc In 9 answers
  23. The definitive, data-driven book on early founding-team decisions, drawing on quantitative research covering nearly 10,000... Princeton University Press Book · ~480 pages The Founder's Dilemmas Noam Wasserman In 9 answers
  24. The definitive manifesto for building a 'calm company', remote-friendly, sustainable, and free of chronic overwork, from a team... 37signals Book · ~232 pages It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson In 9 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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