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. A concrete, step-by-step account of collecting real pre-sale money before building, from a founder who actually did it. Unlike... Indie Hackers Article · ~12 min read $1,400 in pre-sales, step by step Indie Hackers community
  2. A head-on comparison of the exact question you are asking, useful as an orientation before the deeper resources. It draws out... Bundl Article · 12 min read B2B vs B2C Venture Validation: Key Differences Bundl
  3. Aulet, who runs MIT's entrepreneurship center, lays out how to do primary research properly: observe, listen, and interact with... VentureWell (Bill Aulet, MIT) Article · medium read A Practical Guide to Primary Market Research Bill Aulet
  4. Written by an investor who founded and sold a marketplace himself, this is a structured handbook covering business models,... Version One Ventures Article · ~45 min read A Guide to Marketplaces Boris Wertz and Angela Tran
  5. Grinda has backed over a thousand marketplaces, and his blunt take is that roughly 95 percent are demand constrained, not... Fabrice Grinda Essay · ~30 min read Lessons Learned Building Online Marketplaces Fabrice Grinda
  6. Udemy's cofounder explains, with real numbers, how they hand recruited supply when cold calls failed, even creating a course... The Hustle Article · ~15 min read How Udemy Found Their First 1,000 Instructors Sam Parr
  7. Kromatic works with corporate and startup teams on lean experiments, and this piece is precise about the difference and the... Kromatic Article Wizard of Oz Prototyping vs. Concierge Test Kromatic
  8. A practical walkthrough of when a concierge MVP is the right fit, when it is not, and how to actually run one. It is helpful... Upsilon Article What Is a Concierge MVP and When to Use It Upsilon
  9. The reference book on interview craft itself: how to build rapport, ask follow ups, and manage your own bias in the room.... Rosenfeld Media Book · 248 pages Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd Edition) Steve Portigal
  10. A direct answer to the question every founder types into search: what should I actually ask. Torres argues for throwing away... Product Talk Article · 12 min read Ask Teresa: What Are the Best Customer Interview Questions? Teresa Torres
  11. A founder story about doing customer research so carefully that you learn things you did not want to hear. It shows what... First Round Review Article · 20 min read Webflow's Path to Product-Market Fit: Lessons on Rigorous Customer Empathy First Round Review
  12. A short, plain piece that names the exact trap in this question: a curiosity click reads as demand when it is not. It gives... saasvalidation.tech Article Pre-launch waitlists measure curiosity, not intent saasvalidation.tech
  13. A breakdown of how Superhuman turned a waitlist into a filter using onboarding calls, surveys, and referral gating, so joining... Waitlister Article Superhuman's Waitlist Case Study: 180K Users at $30/Month Waitlister
  14. Kamath spells out a hard Indian truth: services that Americans pay a premium for, Indians expect for free, so the same feature... Business Today Article Robinhood charges for speed, India gives it free: Nithin Kamath drops a brutal reality check Nithin Kamath (via Business Today)
  15. Pike weighs pre-selling honestly, including when a signed commitment truly validates demand and when it does not fit your... Allen Pike Essay Sell First, or Build First? Allen Pike
  16. A short, tactical list of ways to test willingness to pay, from small paid pilots to letters of intent to pricing-page click... The Glimpse Article 6 Practical Ways to Find Out if Your Customers are Willing to Pay The Glimpse
  17. A first-hand account of how a founder recruited a small group of likely buyers, shipped the most basic thing, and iterated on... Intercom Blog Article How to launch with a validated idea Garrett Moon
  18. Jackson's test is blunt and useful: can you name five specific real people who need this and would buy it. If you cannot, you... justinjackson.ca Essay A simple way to validate your startup idea Justin Jackson
  19. A practical checklist for turning a hunch into tested evidence, including how to run interviews that surface pain before you... First Round Review Article · ~15 min read How to Test a Business Idea: Essential Tools for Validating Before You Launch First Round Review
  20. This is the full, concrete story of how Airbnb got off zero, from the Craigslist cross-posting hack to poaching Craigslist... First 1000 Article · ~12 min read How Airbnb Got Its First 1,000 Customers Ali Abouelatta
  21. The full Airbnb origin story, including the moment the founders flew to New York to photograph listings themselves because bad... Product Habits Article · 20 min read How Two Designers Created Airbnb and Turned It Into a Billion-Dollar Company Hiten Shah
  22. A short explainer of the Stripe tactic Paul Graham named after the Collison brothers: instead of emailing a signup link, they... This is KP Article · 8 min read The Collison Installation KP
  23. A compact guide to interviewing around jobs, pains, and gains without leading the witness. It keeps you from talking about your... Strategyzer Article · ~6 min read A Quick Guide to Asking Good Customer Questions Strategyzer
  24. A blunt, founder-written case for charging early customers instead of giving the product away. Shah walks through exactly what... OnStartups (Dharmesh Shah) Article Giving Your Software Away For Free (Startup Reality Distortion Effect #1) Dharmesh Shah

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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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