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 clearest argument we know for reframing the whole early-vs-late question: it says being first or being a fast... NFX Essay · ~15 min read Why Startup Timing Is Everything Pete Flint In 5 answers
  2. Moore's classic maps the market you are timing your entry into: innovators and early adopters buy for very different reasons... Goodreads Book · ~250 pages Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers Geoffrey A. Moore In 5 answers
  3. For a two-sided marketplace, the first real decision is which side to define and win first, and this essay makes the case... NFX Essay · Long read (about 25 minutes) 19 Tactics to Solve the Chicken-or-Egg Problem and Grow Your Marketplace James Currier In 5 answers
  4. Lavingia's whole thesis is the one you need as a part-time founder: start with a community you already know and belong to, then... Penguin Random House Book · 288 pages The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less Sahil Lavingia In 5 answers
  5. When you and your technical hire are arguing about the stack, this essay reframes the whole fight: the goal is not the best or... mcfunley.com Essay · ~20 min read Choose Boring Technology Dan McKinley In 5 answers
  6. This is the piece that gives you permission to stop waiting for a big study. Nielsen shows that just five people uncover... Nielsen Norman Group Article · About a 10 minute read Why You Only Need to Test with 5 Users Jakob Nielsen In 5 answers
  7. This is Google's own field research on building for people coming online in markets like India, and it names the exact... Google Design Article · ~12 min read Connectivity, Culture, and Credit: Designing for the Next Billion Users Google Design (Next Billion Users team) In 5 answers
  8. This is the rare cold email piece written by someone who has actually sent thousands of them (Steli Efti built Close, a sales... Close Article 15 Best Cold Email Templates That Actually Get Replies (Proven Examples) Steli Efti In 5 answers
  9. Once you know your curve should flatten, the next question is where it should flatten, and this piece answers it with concrete... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~10 min read What is good retention? Lenny Rachitsky In 5 answers
  10. The India-specific piece that tells you where the split actually gets signed. It separates the founders' agreement (equity,... Treelife Article · 10 min read Founder Vesting in a Shareholders' Agreement: What Startup Founders Must Know Treelife In 5 answers
  11. This is the guide for the check-in itself: what to actually say when you sit down. Perel names the three things co-founder... First Round Review Article · 20 min read How to Fix the Co-Founder Fights You're Sick of Having: Lessons from Couples Therapist Esther Perel Esther Perel (via First Round Review) In 5 answers
  12. The free, original essay that defined the MVP before the book existed, written plainly by the person who coined the term. It... Startup Lessons Learned (Eric Ries) Essay · ~15 min read Minimum Viable Product: a guide Eric Ries In 5 answers
  13. This is the piece written for exactly your situation: no audience, no network, no obvious way to reach the people you need.... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Article When You Have Nothing: How to Find Customers to Interview Jason Cohen In 5 answers
  14. Blank, who built customer development, uses a real founder story to show how a team defaulted to 'build a smaller product' when... steveblank.com Article · 7 min read An MVP is not a Cheaper Product, It's about Smart Learning Steve Blank In 5 answers
  15. Steve Blank's argument for searching for a business model before building one, the get out of the building philosophy in short... Harvard Business Review Article · 15 min read Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything Steve Blank In 5 answers
  16. Jason Levin grew a product to $100K ARR on Bubble with no engineers, then raised $3M and re-platformed to an API. It is a clean... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~20 min read From a $6.90 newsletter to $3M API: How a non-coder built Memelord Jason Levin In 5 answers
  17. This is the other half of your answer: what to do once the thing works. It walks a non-technical founder through when and how... TechCrunch Article How to hire your first engineer: A guide for nontechnical founders TechCrunch In 5 answers
  18. The CTO of India's largest broker explains how a tiny team scales huge load by optimizing the application before touching... Zerodha Tech Blog Article · 15 min read Scaling with common sense Kailash Nadh In 5 answers
  19. Linear is a small, largely distributed team that ships a famously polished product, and this breaks down how they organize... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~20 min read How Linear builds product Lenny Rachitsky In 5 answers
  20. Users judge attractive products as more usable, which is why polish matters and also why it can hide real problems. As a... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read The Aesthetic-Usability Effect Kate Moran In 5 answers
  21. Before you optimize a byte, you need to know who you are building for, and Pai's India1, India2, India3 framing is the clearest... SajithPai.com Essay · Long read India2, English Tax and Building for the Next Billion Users Sajith Pai In 5 answers
  22. This is the practical how-to for actually running the weekly cadence, covering the part most founders get stuck on: recruiting... Product Talk Article Customer Interviews: How to Recruit, What to Ask, and How to Synthesize What You Learn Teresa Torres In 5 answers
  23. The full book behind the essay, for when you want the system and not just the idea. It gives you the language of outcomes over... Melissa Perri (O'Reilly) Book · 200 pages Escaping the Build Trap Melissa Perri In 5 answers
  24. A well organized menu of twelve concrete approaches drawn from real founders, useful when you want structured prompts without... First Round Review (review.firstround.com) Article · ~20 min read 12 Frameworks for Finding Startup Ideas First Round Review In 5 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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