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.

Written by the founder who runs a fully distributed company of thousands across every time zone, this gives you a ladder from a... Matt Mullenweg (Automattic / ma.tt) Essay · ~2,500 words Distributed Work's Five Levels of Autonomy Matt Mullenweg
This makes the case that working software should be produced and integrated constantly, so a broken or stalled build is caught... Joel on Software Article · ~1,500 words Daily Builds Are Your Friend Joel Spolsky
This is the piece specifically about people whose working hours barely overlap, which is your exact problem. It shows how to... The GitLab Handbook Article · Long reference page The complete guide to asynchronous and non-linear working GitLab
Doist built a fully remote company across dozens of countries and wrote down how they structure communication so nobody in an... Doist / Twist Article · Multi-chapter guide The Art of Async: The Remote Guide to Team Communication Doist
A founder walks through actually cutting almost all standing meetings and running the company on written updates, with the... First Round Review Article · ~15 min read The Secret to an In Sync Startup? Ditch Your Meetings and Try an Asynchronous Culture First Round Review
Built from running a large fully remote team, this is a tactical field guide to keeping distributed people aligned and... First Round Review Article · ~20 min read Struggling to Thrive as a Large Team Working Remotely? This Exec Has the Field Guide You Need First Round Review
Your short answer calls for a shared board, and this is the clearest primer on what a good one actually does: make every piece... Atlassian Agile Coach Article · ~10 min read What is a Kanban board? Atlassian
This is the single most on-point read for your question: it explains bus factor and lays out six concrete ways to stop one... Founders Bar Article · 12 min read Bus Factor: The Silent Startup Killer Aneesh Mohanachandran
Written from a fractional CTO's chair, this reframes your best solo developer as a risk to actively de-risk, not just an asset... MindCTO Article · 10 min read Your 10x Engineer Might Be a Bus Factor of 1 Pavel Shpin
A software house lays out the exact practices that let any competent engineer take over a codebase: clean structure, standard... Bright Inventions Article · 9 min read How to Protect Software Development Projects from the Bus Factor Problem Bright Inventions
DHH argues that modern tools let a single individual build a genuinely competitive product, which is the strongest version of... world.hey.com Essay · 8 min read The One Person Framework David Heinemeier Hansson
This spells out the ownership rules that protect you when one person builds everything: you hold the GitHub organization, the... Outsourced.sg Article · 10 min read Hire Your First Developer as a Non-Technical Founder Outsourced.sg
A plain checklist of what you must control so your product does not walk out the door with one developer: source code, the... AllCode Article · 8 min read Take Ownership of Your Outsourced Software Development Project AllCode
When you cannot read the code yourself, an independent audit is how you get a second developer's eyes on what your one builder... SaaS Tune Article · 11 min read The Non-Technical Founder's Guide to Code Audits SaaS Tune
This zooms out from developers to the general pattern of key-person risk: any company where one person holds all the... Allied Venture Partners Article · 15 min read 10 Operational Risks That Sink Startups Matthew Wilson
Written for the Indian hiring market, this covers building a tech team from scratch, including the trap of leaning too long on... Savanna HR Article · 12 min read How to Build a High-Performing Tech Team: A Guide for Indian Startups Swati Sinha
This is the clearest single argument for why you should judge people on a work sample instead of a conversation. It cites the... Aakash Gupta Essay Why Traditional Job Interviews Are Useless (and What to Do Instead) Aakash Gupta
Being outside the big startup hubs is only a disadvantage if you compete for the same over-priced candidates everyone else... Erik Bernhardsson Essay How to Hire Smarter Than the Market: A Toy Model Erik Bernhardsson
Open source is the most public, most honest signal of what a developer can do, and this walks you through finding and... daily.dev Article How to Hire Developers from Open Source Communities daily.dev
A clear overview of the real options for a non technical founder: freelance, full time, or a dedicated team, and where to... Gun.io Article The Ultimate Guide to Hiring Software Developers Gun.io
A short, readable book on finding and recognizing genuinely good developers, from someone who did it without leaning on... Apress (O'Reilly) Book Smart and Gets Things Done Joel Spolsky
A short India focused profile of a leader who explicitly hires on evidence of building, not institute names. It is a quick,... YourStory Article Techie Tuesday: Meet Kailash Nadh, the Self-Taught Coder Behind Zerodha YourStory
A curated set of hiring tactics that deliberately go beyond the standard referral and resume path. It is useful when the... First Round Review Article Our 6 Must Reads for Hiring Tactics That Break the Mold First Round Review
This is a three-minute list of yes/no questions you can literally walk through with the developer you hire, or use to size up... Joel on Software Essay · 10 min read The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code Joel Spolsky

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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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