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 canonical case for running distributed work well, written by the founders of Basecamp who built a remote company... Basecamp Book · About 256 pages Remote: Office Not Required Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
  2. This is the most concrete checklist we found for a founder who cannot read the code but can watch the behavior. It names the... VeryCreatives Article 10 Software Development Red Flags Every Non-Technical Founder Should Know Mate Varkonyi
  3. Before you cut steps, you need to know what the onboarding is racing the user toward. This Reforge guide makes you name your... Reforge Article · 10 min read Define Your Aha Moment Reforge
  4. Julie Zhuo ran design at Facebook, and here she draws the exact line this question is about: the bar for something you ship to... The Year of the Looking Glass (Medium) Essay · About a 10 minute read Building Products Julie Zhuo
  5. Nielsen Norman Group is the closest thing to a standard reference in usability, and this piece is a clean, specific checklist... Nielsen Norman Group Article Error-Message Guidelines Tim Neusesser and Evan Sunwall (Nielsen Norman Group)
  6. This is a clear, opinionated take from an investor who has watched many teams get the timing wrong. It argues for hiring design... Amplify Partners Essay When should early-stage startups hire a designer? Joshua Goldenberg
  7. This is the plain, research backed baseline for the whole question: it draws the line between translating an interface and... Nielsen Norman Group Article · About a 12 minute read Modify Your Design for Global Audiences: Crosscultural UX Design Feifei Liu
  8. This is the reference founders reach for when a dashboard has turned into a wall of numbers nobody reads. Few grounds every... Analytics Press / Amazon Book · ~250 pages Information Dashboard Design: Displaying Data for At-a-Glance Monitoring Stephen Few
  9. When half your revenue comes from one customer's custom asks, the real risk is not the roadmap slipping, it is quietly becoming... Startup Folsom Article Service as a Software: The Startup Trap That Looks Like SaaS but Scales Like Consulting Rich Foreman
  10. This tackles the exact question head-on: should you expose the roadmap at all, and what do you actually risk. It is honest... canny.io Essay Should You Have a Public Product Roadmap? Eric Hoppe
  11. This is a plain, ordered walkthrough of the same sweep a careful founder runs: a quick web search, domain availability, social... godaddy.com Article How to check if a business name is taken GoDaddy
  12. Watkins runs a naming firm and gives you an actual framework instead of vibes: her SMILE test (a good name is Suggestive,... Berrett-Koehler / Penguin Random House Book · Short book, around 190 pages Hello, My Name Is Awesome: How to Create Brand Names That Stick Alexandra Watkins
  13. This is the clearest plain-language explainer of the specific downside you are weighing: a descriptive name (think Kentucky... Fabrik Brands (branding agency blog) Article · Medium read, roughly 8 to 10 minutes What are descriptive brand names? The pros and cons of descriptive naming Fabrik Brands
  14. This is the closest thing to a straight answer for your exact situation: the owner named a big number, now what. It walks... Entrepreneur Article How to Negotiate the Price of a Pricey Premium Domain James Parsons
  15. Before you overpay for the perfect .com, this shows the workaround thousands of funded startups actually used: add a small word... buycompanyname.com Essay Startup Naming Trends: Prefixes, Suffixes, Length and Word Count Dionysios Alexopoulos
  16. Most naming advice stops at opinions, this one runs an actual experiment. Justin Wilcox walks through testing name candidates... Customer Development Labs Article · ~12 min read How to (Scientifically) Pick the Best Domain Name Justin Wilcox
  17. This is the plain checklist most first-time founders actually need: the ten errors that quietly hurt a name, from being too... Strikingly Article · ~10 min read Startup Names: Top 10 Mistakes to Avoid Strikingly
  18. Nothing makes the cultural-check lesson stick like real names that backfired, and this piece walks through documented ones... 11 Points Essay · ~8 min read 11 Brand Names That Don't Translate Well in Foreign Languages Sam Greenspan
  19. This lays out the sequencing question head on for Indian founders: incorporating your company or owning the .com does not give... Intepat IP Article Trademark Registration for Startups in India: A Practical Guide Intepat IP
  20. This answers the real question of when to actually file, and its answer is early, even before you launch, because Indian law... Mondaq Article Trademark Strategy For Startups: What Early-Stage Companies Overlook In Their Rush To Market Krutha Janani M (Khurana and Khurana)
  21. This is a grounded look at what your name actually does in search: it explains that ranking for your own brand name is mostly a... Search Engine Land Article · ~12 min read Branded search and SEO: What you need to know Dan Taylor
  22. This piece directly debunks the old belief that putting a keyword in your domain buys you rankings, quoting Google's own people... Search Engine Journal Essay · ~10 min read Is Domain Name a Google Ranking Factor? Miranda Miller
  23. This is the rare naming guide written for India specifically, not a global piece with an Indian footnote. It walks through how... Bizonym Article Naming Challenges and Strategies for Indian Audiences Bizonym
  24. Once you have a shortlist, you need a way to screen each name for meanings you did not intend, and this is a practical method... Operative Words Article Red Flags and Red Herrings: How to check brand names in foreign languages Operative Words

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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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