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.

Error prevention is one of Nielsen's ten heuristics, and this unpacks how to actually do it: match the user's mental model,... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read Preventing User Errors: Avoiding Conscious Mistakes Page Laubheimer
An Indian product team writing about how they think, not just how they draw. Zomato argues that good UX starts from... Zomato Article · 10 min read Product Before Pixels: a product thinking workshop for designers Zomato Design
A behind the scenes look at how an Indian company built consistency into a fast moving product with a shared design system. It... Zomato Article · 8 min read Zomato's Sushi Design System Zomato Design
The quality of your test depends entirely on the tasks you give. This piece shows how to write realistic scenarios that do not... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~9 min read Turn User Goals into Task Scenarios for Usability Testing Marieke McCloskey
Wireframing is the skill the short answer says you actually need, and this explains it without design jargon. It covers low... Figma Article · 12 minute read What is Wireframing? The Complete Guide Figma
The short answer says the real work is thinking through the user's path, and mapping the flow is how you do that before... Figma Article · 10 minute read What is a user flow, and why it matters Figma
This chapter argues you can think through a whole flow with words and crude sketches before any real design tool. Breadboarding... Basecamp Essay · 20 minute read Shape Up: Find the Elements (breadboarding and fat marker sketches) Ryan Singer
This is the book behind the whole idea that good design is affordances and feedback, the exact language in our short answer.... Don Norman Book · Book, approx 350 pages The Design of Everyday Things (Revised and Expanded Edition) Don Norman
This backs up the first three seconds claim with research: people judge a page in milliseconds, and that snap verdict is hard... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 10 min read First Impressions Matter: How Designers Can Support Humans' Automatic Cognitive Processing Therese Fessenden
The rule behind trimming your onboarding, your pricing tiers, and your menus. More choices mean slower decisions, so this card... Laws of UX Article · 5 min read Hick's Law Jon Yablonski
Why your primary button should be big and easy to reach, especially on mobile. The time to hit a target depends on its size and... Laws of UX Article · 5 min read Fitts's Law Jon Yablonski
The chunking principle that keeps forms and dashboards from overwhelming people. Working memory is limited, so you group... Laws of UX Article · 5 min read Miller's Law Jon Yablonski
The deeper, research backed treatment from the field's most trusted usability lab. It explains the actual mechanics of target... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 12 min read Fitts's Law and Its Applications in UX Raluca Budiu
A curated map of the psychology that underpins these laws, with links to go deeper on each. Rather than one principle, it... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 10 min read Psychology for UX: Study Guide Tanner Kohler
A clear, example rich walkthrough of Hick's Law with the history and the practical moves side by side. It shows how to figure... Interaction Design Foundation Article · 8 min read Hick's Law: Making the Choice Easier for Users Mads Soegaard
A hands on explainer of how size and distance shape whether a control feels easy or fiddly. It uses concrete UI examples,... Interaction Design Foundation Article · 8 min read Fitts's Law: The Importance of Size and Distance in UI Design Interaction Design Foundation
A clear Hick's Law primer from one of India's established design studios, so the framing sits close to home. It lays out four... Think Design (India) Article · 7 min read Understanding Hick's Law and Its Application in UX Design Stuti Mazumdar
Spool, who has studied usability since the 1970s, reframes testing from a pass-or-fail exam into a habit of regularly watching... Medium (Jared Spool) Essay A Fundamental Mind Shift for Usability Testing Jared Spool
A founder-framed walkthrough of running a lightweight usability test and why five users catch roughly 80 percent of issues. It... UXReactor Article Usability Testing: A Founder's Guide (test with 5 users) UXReactor
Written for Indian founders, it names the local trap of jumping straight to wireframes and dev without watching a single real... Vamos Digital Article UX Design vs UI Design: What Indian Founders Need to Know Before Building a Product Vamos Digital
Hulick pulls apart the first run experience of well known apps screen by screen, showing what each step costs and what it... UserOnboard Article User Onboarding Teardowns Samuel Hulick
A comic style teardown of Blinkist onboarding grounded in behavioral psychology, showing why each step helps or hurts. It gives... Growth.Design Article One Simple Psychology Framework To Improve Your Onboarding (Blinkist) Growth.Design
Duolingo lets people finish a full lesson before it ever asks them to create an account, and this study breaks down why that... Growth.Design Article Duolingo's User Retention: 8 Tactics Tested On 300 Million Users Growth.Design
Research backed rules for making forms feel effortless, which is where much of onboarding drop happens. It directly supports... Nielsen Norman Group Article Few Guesses, More Success: 4 Principles to Reduce Cognitive Load in Forms Huei-Hsin Wang

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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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