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. Before writing much code, Pilot's founders asked fellow founders one costly question: would you pay us 100 dollars a month to... First Round Review Article · 20 min read Pilot's Path to Product-Market Fit First Round Review (with Jessica McKellar, CTO of Pilot)
  2. When a strategy fight has calcified into a standoff, this walks through the mechanics of getting unstuck: name what each of you... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read Healing your co-founder relationship Lenny Rachitsky (with Matt Mochary)
  3. This is the tactical playbook for the interview seat: it tells you to lead with the milestones you actually hit, back the story... Crunchbase News Article · 8 min read Your Startup Failed and Now You're Looking for a Job. Here's What to Do. Jaclyn Robinson
  4. This is the exact move your answer prescribes, from the former pro poker player who turned it into a discipline. Duke tells you... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~25 min read A framework for making better decisions (setting kill criteria in advance) Annie Duke (interviewed by Lenny Rachitsky)
  5. This is the honest bootstrapper shutdown account with the actual numbers, not a tidy failure listicle. Draelos self-funded... Glass Box Medicine Article · ~30 min read Why I Shut Down My Bootstrapped Health AI Startup After 7 Years: A Founder's Postmortem Dr. Rachel Draelos (founder and CEO, Cydoc)
  6. This is the closest thing to a field manual for your exact question: founders who already shut one thing down and had to decide... First Round Review Article · About a 20 minute read Take Two: Eight Hard-Earned Lessons from Repeat Founders on Starting Over Again First Round Review (Bob Moore, Dan Siroker, Neha Narkhede and others)
  7. If you are an Anywhere Founder in India weighing a job after shutting down, this is the ground truth nobody tells you. The Ken... The Ken Article · About a 15 minute read What happens when a failed founder goes job hunting? The Ken
  8. This is the cleanest answer to "what do I hire out first." Martell's Replacement Ladder gives you an explicit order: rung one... Buy Back Your Time Book · Book (~272 pages); the Replacement Ladder is one core chapter The Replacement Ladder: Buy Back Your Time Dan Martell
  9. Once you have decided to buy hours, this is the operating manual. It walks you through a time audit to find the tasks eating... HubSpot Article · Long-read guide, ~15 min The Founder's Guide to Delegating Effectively to Virtual Assistants HubSpot for Startups
  10. This is the honest, first-hand counterweight to the frameworks: real solo founders telling another solo founder not to hire a... Hacker News Article · Discussion thread, ~10 to 15 min to read the top comments Ask HN: As a first-time solopreneur how would you go about hiring the first team Hacker News community
  11. This is the anti-fake-team playbook. It argues a solo B2B operator wins by being recognizable for one problem, presenting the... How Solos Scale Article · 15 min read The Micro-Agency Model: How B2B Solopreneurs Build a Real Business Without Headcount How Solos Scale
  12. The concrete India checklist for looking legitimate to a larger client without incorporating a fake team. It spells out the... Karbon Card Article · 12 min read Best Business Structure for Freelancers and Solo Founders in India Karbon Card
  13. Hard data (not vibes) that a one-person company is a legitimate posture, not a weakness to disguise. Stripe's numbers show top... Stripe Article · 8 min read Solo Founders: The Traits Top Performers Share Stripe
  14. An honest investor-side essay that names the real objection and tells you how to kill it. It quotes a16z's Andrew Chen:... a16z Speedrun (Substack) Essay · 15 min read The case for (and against) founding solo Evan Armstrong (guest post, a16z speedrun)
  15. A first-hand account from an Indian founder who bootstrapped for two years, then raised alone, so it speaks to the actual... Inc42 Article · 7 min read Learnings From A Single Founder Startup Chandrika Pasricha
  16. Lynch runs TinyPilot solo and sets an explicit goal for the year: be able to take a two-week vacation without the business... mtlynch.io Article · Long read (about 25 minutes) My Fourth Year as a Bootstrapped Founder Michael Lynch
  17. This is the systems sequel: how Lynch structured the business so no single person (including himself) is a single point of... mtlynch.io Article · Long read (about 30 minutes) My Fifth Year as a Bootstrapped Founder Michael Lynch
  18. This is written from the other side of the table: enterprise procurement leaders telling small vendors exactly how to get... Venture Atlanta Article · 12 min read How to Navigate Enterprise Procurement as a Startup (advice from the procurement leaders themselves) Venture Atlanta (panel of enterprise procurement executives)
  19. Enterprise procurement in India kills deals on paperwork before anyone judges your work, and this is the precise list of what... OPEN Money Blog Article · 15 min read Vendor Onboarding Checklist for Indian Businesses: the exact documents an enterprise buyer will demand OPEN Money editorial team
  20. Once onboarding clears, the enterprise legal team hands you a contract, and a solo founder who negotiates blind gets buried in... Bhavya Sharma & Associates Article · 18 min read SaaS Customer Contract Checklist for Indian Startups: MSA, DPA, SLA, IP and Payment Terms Bhavya Sharma & Associates (law firm)
  21. This is the exact fork most solo founders face, and Razorpay lays it out without the jargon: a proprietorship is unlimited... Razorpay Rize (Learn) Article · 12 min read Sole Proprietorship vs One Person Company: Which Should a Solo Founder Pick? Razorpay Rize
  22. This is the first-year compliance rhythm in one place, in plain English: what GST actually is versus what your ITR is, when... QuickGo Blog Article · 15 min read Startup GST and ITR: The Simple Founder's Guide QuickGo
  23. GST is the single compliance item a solo founder most often gets wrong, either registering too late or not knowing the... ClearTax Article · 18 min read GST Registration: Thresholds, Documents, Process, and Penalties ClearTax
  24. The LinkedIn founder names the exact thing a solo founder feels and refuses to call it weakness: you are carrying context... Greylock Essay · ~2,500 words, 10 min read Entrepreneurship and Loneliness Reid Hoffman

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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