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. Jason Cohen bootstrapped WP Engine and shares a simple test for whether a problem is real: when you talk to people, do their... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · About 12 min read The Convergent Theory of Finding Truth (vetting startup ideas) Jason Cohen
  2. The consumer companion to the B2B piece, covering how Airbnb, Twitter, Pinterest, Tinder and others began. Many ideas felt... Lenny's Newsletter Article · About 15 min read How the Most Successful Consumer Startups Came Up With Their Idea Lenny Rachitsky
  3. Isenberg is practical about finding underserved, unsexy niches where people are literally asking for tools that do not exist... Greg Isenberg (gregisenberg.com) Article · ~12 min read Find winning startup ideas from AI and data Greg Isenberg
  4. A useful counterweight if you are frozen trying to find the single perfect idea. Gil argues the market you pick matters more... blog.eladgil.com Essay · ~6 min read You Don't Need A Good Idea To Start A Great Company Elad Gil
  5. A tight, investor's checklist for the exact decision you are making. Bent leads with choosing a burning idea you cannot stop... Mercedes Bent, Lightspeed (Medium) Article · ~12 min read How to Choose a Startup Idea Mercedes Bent
  6. This speaks straight to the kill the lukewarm ones part of the answer. Hedging across several ideas feels safe but actually... Startups.com Article · ~8 min read The Problem With Working on Multiple Ideas at Once Wil Schroter
  7. A field study of startups serving low and middle income Indian customers, focused squarely on the price sensitive buyer. It... IIMA Ventures Insights Article · ~12 min read Bharat Startups: The Price Sensitive Customer IIMA Ventures
  8. Blank invented the get out of the building idea, and here he makes the sharpest version of the case: until you test your... steveblank.com Article · ~8 min read No Plan Survives First Contact With Customers Steve Blank
  9. Bezos separates decisions into one way doors you cannot undo and two way doors you can walk back through. Deciding to build a... Amazon shareholder letter (Jeff Bezos) Essay · ~6 min read (relevant section) 2015 Letter to Shareholders (Two-Way Doors) Jeff Bezos
  10. This is the most concrete method we found for collecting the complaints nobody has fixed when you cannot yet get people on... Solving Product (Amy Hoy and Alex Hillman method) Article · Medium read How to Find New Product Opportunities with a Sales Safari Étienne Garbugli
  11. This is the honest counterweight to the romance of the naive disruptor, and it maps onto your short answer directly. It shows... Kellogg Insight, Northwestern Article · Medium read Sure, Industry Outsiders Can Bring Fresh Ideas. But Are They Better Entrepreneurs? Kellogg Insight
  12. Marty Cagan draws the line cleanly: if you are going to fall in love, fall in love with the problem, not the solution, and get... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · ~6 min read Discovery: Problem vs. Solution Marty Cagan
  13. Choosing between two ideas is a bet under uncertainty, and Duke gives you the mindset for it: judge the decision by its... Annie Duke Book · ~272 pages Thinking in Bets Annie Duke
  14. This is the direct counter to the fear in your short answer, that a platform update erases your product overnight. Chen argues... Andrew Chen Essay · 20 min read Revenge of the GPT Wrappers: Defensibility in a World of Commoditized AI Models Andrew Chen
  15. Before you commit, you need to know whether the value from your AI idea accrues to you or to an incumbent who bolts the feature... Elad Gil Essay · 12 min read AI: Startup Vs Incumbent Value Elad Gil
  16. A map of which AI markets already have clear winners and which are still wide open, which is the practical version of asking... Elad Gil Essay · 12 min read AI Market Clarity Elad Gil
  17. This explains why niches once dismissed as too small (laundromats, vets, clinics) become real businesses when AI absorbs the... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 15 min read Vertical SaaS: Now with AI Inside Angela Strange and James da Costa
  18. The core move in our short answer is decomposing a workflow into steps a model can now do. This piece frames every workflow as... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 15 min read The Rise of Computer Use and Agentic Coworkers Eric Zhou, Yoko Li, Seema Amble, Jennifer Li
  19. A structured playbook for picking a vertical where AI now delivers real leverage and building something that feels less like... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 20 min read Building Vertical AI: An Early-Stage Playbook for Founders Bessemer Venture Partners
  20. Once you have spotted the opening, this gives you concrete principles for making it defensible, heavy on proprietary data and... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 15 min read Ten Principles for Building Strong Vertical AI Businesses Bessemer Venture Partners
  21. A clear-eyed take on what actually changes when a model can do a task at good-enough quality and cheaply, and where humans... Every Essay · 15 min read After Automation Dan Shipper
  22. To spot what is newly possible you need to know what the models can suddenly do that they could not before, and this essay maps... Sequoia Capital Essay · 18 min read Generative AI's Act o1: The Reasoning Era Begins Sonya Huang and Pat Grady
  23. A broad map of where AI is actually gaining traction across infrastructure, horizontal, and vertical use cases, so you can see... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 30 min read The State of AI 2025 Bessemer Venture Partners
  24. The clearest argument that idea generation is a muscle, not a gift. Altucher's practice, write ten ideas a day until it becomes... James Altucher Essay · 15 min read The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine James Altucher

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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