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. CB Insights read hundreds of real startup postmortems and found that poor product-market fit (around 43 percent) is the single... CB Insights Article · ~15 min read The Top 12 Reasons Startups Fail CB Insights In 7 answers
  2. Seibel's whole point is that a market only counts once real customers are grabbing the product as fast as you can make it and... Michael Seibel (Y Combinator) Essay · ~4 min read The Real Product Market Fit Michael Seibel In 7 answers
  3. This is a working Indian seed VC (Blume backed Unacademy, Purplle, Slice) writing down what it actually looks for, slide by... Blume Ventures Article · 20 min read High Pitched Assessments: the exhaustive list of what makes a good pitch deck Blume Ventures In 7 answers
  4. YC's counterpoint is worth hearing precisely because it pushes back on being stingy: if this person is a real co-founder doing... Y Combinator Article · 10 min read How to Split Equity Among Co-Founders Y Combinator In 7 answers
  5. A free, short predecessor to The Right It for when you want the method without buying a book. It lays out cheap experiments... pretotyping.org Book · ~90 pages Pretotype It (free PDF) Alberto Savoia In 7 answers
  6. Getting the customer to say yes is only half the job, the other half is onboarding them yourself so they actually succeed. This... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read How to Build and Scale Onboarding (The Superhuman Playbook) Gaurav Vohra In 7 answers
  7. This is the book length version of the exact instinct in our short answer, that you generate real insight by living in the... Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman (patternbreakers.com) Book · ~304 pages Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman In 7 answers
  8. Dixon argues that the hobbies smart engineers pour weekends into today become mainstream work in ten years, because engineers... cdixon.org (Chris Dixon) Essay · ~4 min read What the Smartest People Do on the Weekend Is What Everyone Else Will Do During the Week in Ten Years Chris Dixon In 7 answers
  9. Written by a former FBI hostage negotiator, not a sales trainer, which is exactly why it works for founders who recoil at... Chris Voss Book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Chris Voss In 7 answers
  10. Naval's concept of 'specific knowledge', the thing that feels like play to you and work to everyone else, is the clearest... nav.al Article · ~20 min read How to Get Rich (specific knowledge, leverage & judgment) Naval Ravikant In 6 answers
  11. The foundational text on human-centered design that every product person should read once. It rewires how you see every... jnd.org / Basic Books Book · ~350 pages The Design of Everyday Things Don Norman In 6 answers
  12. The single best free walkthrough of what belongs on a landing page, with a real 10-step structure and copy examples for every... Marketing Examples Article · 15 min read The step-by-step guide to landing pages that convert Harry Dry In 6 answers
  13. Lenny's Newsletter is the most trusted operator-written resource on product, growth, and monetization, drawing on data from... lennysnewsletter.com Article · newsletter archive Lenny's Newsletter, Growth, Business Models & Monetization Lenny Rachitsky In 6 answers
  14. The most accessible book for non-finance founders on reading a P&L, balance sheet, and cash flow statement. It demystifies the... hbr.org Book · book (~304 pages) Financial Intelligence for Entrepreneurs Karen Berman & Joe Knight In 6 answers
  15. The single most useful mental model for whether you actually need to raise. Graham's 'default alive vs default dead' framing... paulgraham.com Article · 10 min read Default Alive or Default Dead? Paul Graham In 6 answers
  16. A detailed, clause-by-clause drafting guide with Indian legal context, including enforceability and state-wise stamp duty, that... lawsikho.com Article · Long read Co-Founder Agreements in India 2026: A Comprehensive Drafting Guide LawSikho In 6 answers
  17. YC's full curated body of hiring wisdom, from when to hire to how to close and evaluate early employees. The best free,... YC Startup Library Article · Curated essays + talks Hiring & Recruiting (YC Startup Library collection) Y Combinator In 6 answers
  18. The single most reassuring and clarifying essay for a founder on the edge of quitting, Graham's core insight that startups die... paulgraham.com Article · short How Not to Die Paul Graham In 6 answers
  19. The canonical primary source on the mindset shift before you start up, Graham's Stanford lecture directly addresses whether you... paulgraham.com Essay · ~6,000 words Before the Startup Paul Graham In 6 answers
  20. When you feel that something is broken but cannot name it, Christensen's Jobs-to-be-Done lens gives you a way to describe the... HarperBusiness Book · ~288 pages Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, David S. Duncan In 6 answers
  21. The book behind the "One Metric That Matters" discipline, which is exactly the mindset you need to judge whether a ship worked... O'Reilly / Lean Series Book · 440 pages Lean Analytics: Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster Alistair Croll and Benjamin Yoskovitz In 6 answers
  22. This essay names the exact trap you are in: delays in launching are usually fear of being judged and excessive perfectionism... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups Paul Graham In 6 answers
  23. This is the canonical structure for the investor cold email, written by a YC partner who reads them from the other side. It is... Y Combinator Startup Library Essay · 5 min read How to Cold Email Investors Aaron Harris In 6 answers
  24. Kahl's whole argument is that you earn an audience by embedding in a community and being useful first, then building with those... embeddedentrepreneur.com Book · ~280 pages The Embedded Entrepreneur: How to Build an Audience-Driven Business Arvid Kahl In 6 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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