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. Most CAC math quietly assumes one funnel, and that breaks the moment you have to pay to acquire both sellers and buyers. This... Natalie Luu, Lightspeed Venture Partners (Medium) Article How to Measure CAC in a Two-Sided Marketplace Natalie Luu (Lightspeed Venture Partners)
  2. This is the cleanest plain, formula-first explainer of the magic number: it gives you the exact calculation... Wall Street Prep Article · ~10 min read SaaS Magic Number: Formula + Calculator Wall Street Prep
  3. Bessemer built this from years of their own portfolio data, and it is the piece that answers the real question hiding inside... Bessemer Venture Partners (Atlas) Essay · long read plus benchmark charts Scaling to $100 Million Mary D'Onofrio, Bessemer Venture Partners
  4. This is the clearest walk-through of the exact trap you are in: your spreadsheet shows a healthy per-unit margin because unit... Toptal Article · About a 15 minute read Don't Scale an Unprofitable Business: Why Unit Economics (Still) Matter Toby Clarence-Smith
  5. Patrick Campbell built ProfitWell on more pricing data than almost anyone in SaaS, and this piece distills his core idea: find... LTSE (Long-Term Stock Exchange) Essay · ~10 min read Patrick Campbell's ProfitWell Playbook: Boost startup revenue with value metric pricing Patrick Campbell
  6. If you started cheap to win early deals, this covers the follow-up problem: how to raise prices on existing accounts without... OpenView Article · ~12 min read SaaS Pricing Guide: When & How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers Kyle Poyar
  7. This is the clearest honest look at why a services arm quietly starves your product: Jason Cohen (who bootstrapped WP Engine)... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay The unfortunate math behind consulting companies Jason Cohen
  8. This is the most concrete piece on turning repeatable service work into a scalable offer, built around finding the 20 percent... Consulting Success Article The Consultant's Guide to Productization Michael Zipursky
  9. This is the essay that gave the industry a clean way to answer your question: divide net burn by net new ARR, and you know how... Craft Ventures (Medium) Essay · About a 12 minute read The Burn Multiple David Sacks
  10. Before you spend down your cushion on growth, you need to know how long it takes to earn that money back, and this is the... The SaaS CFO Article · About a 10 minute read How I Calculate the CAC Payback Period Ben Murray
  11. This is a founder writing honestly after quitting too early, burning 18 months and his savings, then going back to a job and... Indie Hackers Essay · ~10 min read Startup lesson learned: Don't quit your job before there is interest in your product Eddie Forson
  12. This is the most concrete, no-fluff answer we found to the actual mechanics question: how much do I give up to get a customer... SaaStr Article · Short read, about 6 to 8 minutes Dear SaaStr: What's a Reasonable Discount for an Annual Contract? How About a 3-Year Contract? Jason Lemkin
  13. This is the definitive book on funding growth from customer cash instead of your savings or an investor, and it names the five... Wiley Book · Full-length book, about 320 pages The Customer-Funded Business: Start, Finance, or Grow Your Company with Your Customers' Cash John Mullins
  14. This is the practical companion to the staying-small question: it replaces gut feel with concrete triggers for when a hire is... Startup Rally Article · about a 10 minute read First Hires in a Bootstrapped Startup: A Cashflow Guide Startup Rally
  15. This is the clearest proof case that a serious software company can be built away from the big startup hubs: a 150-person team... Inc42 Article · ~8 min read How Zoho Aims To Put Tenkasi On The Map With Zoho Desk, A Product Built In The Downtown Of Nowhere Shweta Modgil, Inc42
  16. This is the clearest read on why a rupee of Indian revenue and a dollar of US revenue are not the same size, pulling together... Monetizely Article Regional vs Global SaaS Pricing: A Strategic Approach to Pricing Optimization Monetizely
  17. The margin leak most bootstrapped founders never see coming is their own infrastructure bill, and this is the essay that put a... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · About a 15 minute read The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox Sarah Wang and Martin Casado
  18. Every one-off custom feature you say yes to is margin you spend building something one customer wants and everyone else pays to... Medium Article · About a 7 minute read How we avoid building the wrong product as a bootstrap startup Clement Bataille
  19. Jason Lemkin has funded and built enough companies to say plainly that staying revenue-funded and keeping your ownership is... SaaStr Essay · 5 min read How can companies be revenue funded and survive without venture capital? Jason Lemkin
  20. Most founder-salary writing either romanticizes starving yourself or only speaks to VC-backed rounds. This one pushes back on... Majd's Newsletter (Substack) Essay How much should founders pay themselves? Majd ALAILY
  21. Most advice frames a low founder salary as noble discipline. This piece makes the counter-case with real founder voices: when... Millennial Masters (Substack) Article Underpaying yourself is hurting the company Daniel Ionescu
  22. This lays out the real downstream cost of mixing personal and business money in plain terms: messy books, harder taxes, missed... Mercury Article Why you need a separate bank account for your business Mercury
  23. A practical, India-specific checklist of what a bank actually asks a private limited company for once you are incorporated:... IndiaFilings Article How to Open a Current Bank Account for a Private Limited Company IndiaFilings
  24. This piece names the exact confusion in the question: profit is earned on paper under accrual rules, but cash is what actually... Ramp Article Why Your Profitable Business Is Running Out of Cash & How to Fix It Ramp

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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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