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 calm, comprehensive overview of where co-founders come from, what to look for, and the traps to avoid, useful as a single... Silicon Valley Bank Article · 12 min read How to Find a Co-Founder: A Guide for Startup Founders Beau Kraft
  2. An India-focused take that leans on storytelling: people join people, not business plans, so you find a co-founder by telling a... YourStory Article · 8 min read How to Find a Co-Founder for Your Startup YourStory
  3. A VC makes the case that outsourcing a core function may buy short term speed but stops you building the expertise your company... Version One Ventures Essay · short read Never, ever outsource your core Boris Wertz
  4. This comes from a respected agency, which makes its honesty useful: it lays out when an outside team genuinely helps and when... thoughtbot Article · medium read Should I hire my own team or an agency for my MVP? thoughtbot
  5. If you do go the agency or freelancer route, this is the practical checklist for not getting burned: put the repo in your own... Solv Legal Article · medium read We Built the Product But Don't Own It: How Founders Lose IP Solv Legal
  6. A candid engineer heavy discussion on how non technical founders should get their product built and why so many agency and... Hacker News Thread · short read Advice for finding a technical co-founder Hacker News community
  7. This is the tightest statement of why hiring is a founder's core job, not a delegated one, and it argues you should spend a... Sam Altman Essay · Short read How to Hire Sam Altman
  8. This is the most direct support for the network-first approach: a concrete system for surfacing the strong people already one... First Round Review Article · Long read The Best Hires Are Right Under Your Nose: Mine Your Network for Early-Stage Hiring Gold Peter Kazanjy
  9. Winning the hire is wasted if your best engineers leave in a year, and this piece digs into why people actually quit. Lack of... First Round Review Article · Long read This is Why People Leave Your Company Carly Guthrie
  10. The recruiting chapter of Elad Gil's handbook is a dense, practical reference on building hiring processes that hold their bar... Elad Gil Book · Full chapter, free online High Growth Handbook: Recruiting, hiring, and managing talent Elad Gil
  11. A step-by-step guide from a startup hiring platform that covers sourcing, referrals, and being open to remote to widen a thin... Wellfound Article · Long read The Complete Guide to Hiring Your First Engineer Ves Todorov
  12. Equity is one of your strongest levers for pulling engineers away from higher-paying options, but only if you can explain it... Qapita Article · Medium read A Basic Guide to Understand ESOPs in India Qapita
  13. This is the operational how-to behind our short answer: how to run a paid, job-representative trial, drawing on how Linear,... Lenny's Newsletter Article · Medium read Adding a work trial to your interview process Lenny Rachitsky
  14. The full recruiting chapter of a widely used operator's handbook, free to read online. It covers work-product exercises, fast... High Growth Handbook Article · Medium read High Growth Handbook: Recruiting best practices Elad Gil
  15. Automattic's founder explains, in his own words, why they pay candidates to do real work before hiring and largely skip the... ma.tt (Matt Mullenweg's blog) Essay · Short read Hiring by Audition, Expanded Matt Mullenweg
  16. A concrete script of process and judgment questions a non-technical founder can ask and actually understand the answers to. It... Lightmatter Article · Medium read How to Interview Engineers When You're Not Technical (Part 1) Greg H.
  17. A tidy rundown of alternatives to whiteboard puzzles: portfolio walkthroughs, short representative tasks, and conversations... daily.dev Article · Short read How to Assess Technical Skills During Interviews Without Coding Tests daily.dev
  18. An engineer writes candidly about how non-technical founders get burned, using a case study of a developer who billed excessive... Medium Essay · Medium read How to Vet and Hire Engineers as a non-Technical Founder Jared Wright
  19. A compact three-part filter for a first technical hire: can they reliably ship, do they use current tools well, and did you get... Medium Article · Short read Non-technical guide to evaluating engineers Mike Lerner
  20. A focused chapter aimed squarely at the non-technical reader, on reading communication, asking a candidate to explain why a... Gun.io Article · Short read How to Assess a Developer's Skills Without Technical Knowledge Gun.io
  21. A broad, readable primer covering portfolio reviews, trial projects, and leaning on advisors, written for founders with no... DigitalOcean Article · Medium read Technical hiring for non-technical founders DigitalOcean
  22. Directly titled to this question, it argues for defining the one problem you actually need solved, hiring a pragmatic... Metamindz Article · Medium read How to Hire Your First Developer When You Can't Code Metamindz
  23. Mullenweg's HBR first-person account of switching Automattic to paid tryouts after charming interviews kept misfiring. It is... Harvard Business Review Article · Medium read The CEO of Automattic on Holding Auditions to Build a Strong Team Matt Mullenweg
  24. Wasserman studied 10,000 founders and found the counterintuitive result: founders who give away more equity to attract strong... Noam Wasserman Article · 12 min read Rich versus King: The Core Concept Noam Wasserman

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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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