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.

This explains the actual mechanism behind starting higher than feels comfortable: whoever names a number first shapes the... Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Article · ~7 min read Price Anchoring 101 Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School
A real thread of solo founders arguing through exactly your problem in the comments, including pushback from Indie Hackers... Indie Hackers Thread · ~10 min read How do you "charge more" as an indie hacker? Courtland Allen
This piece names the exact trap founders fall into: sending the same generic "just checking in" message everyone else sends,... Predictable Revenue (Steli Efti) Article Why Your Competitors' Follow-Ups Aren't Working (and Yours Can) Collin Stewart
This is a tight, practical breakdown of why most recap emails fail: they bury the action item under a long summary. It argues... 30MPC (30 Minutes to President's Club) Article 3 Steps for Crafting the Perfect Sales Recap Email 30MPC (30 Minutes to President's Club)
This is a curated set of First Round's deepest sales pieces for founders, including scripts for the exact emails and calls that... First Round Review Article If You're a Founder Brushing Up on Sales 101 First Round Review
Lemkin's point is blunt and useful: most of the extra revenue sitting in your pipeline right now comes from leads that were... SaaStr (Jason Lemkin) Article How to Close More Revenue Today, With the Leads You Already Have Jason Lemkin
Iannarino argues that honoring even small commitments you made on the call, like sending that one document you promised, is... The Sales Blog (Anthony Iannarino) Essay Keeping Commitments: Why Follow Up and Follow Through Make or Break Opportunities Anthony Iannarino
Short, practical piece on formatting the same-day recap so a busy buyer actually reads it: next steps up top, specific... Superhuman Article Meeting Recap Email Example: 3 Steps to Writing Follow-Ups That Actually Get Read Superhuman
Ramit Sethi built a business partly on emails from strangers that got answered, and this guide is his own breakdown of what... Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich Essay The Ultimate Guide to Email Copywriting Ramit Sethi, I Will Teach You To Be Rich
Copyhackers writes for people who make a living from words converting, and this piece is focused tightly on the mechanics of... Copyhackers Article 4 Tips to Get Your Cold Emails Opened Copyhackers
Your subject line decides whether the rest of your email gets read at all, and this piece is entirely dedicated to getting that... Demand Curve Article Cold Email Subject Line Do's and Don'ts Demand Curve
This is a founder's own account of one specific cold email that worked, with the reasoning behind each choice she made, rather... Allie Janoch (Medium) Essay How I Turned a Cold Email Into a $2.5M Seed Round Allie Janoch (Medium)
Jason Lemkin has seen thousands of founder emails as an investor himself, and this piece is written from that side of the... SaaStr Article Dear SaaStr: How Do I Write a Great Cold Email To VCs? Jason Lemkin
Intercom's founders describe sending around a hundred highly personal emails a day in their earliest days, each one custom... Intercom Blog Essay How Intercom Got Our First Customers Intercom Blog
Graham draws a sharp line between persistence and mere obstinacy: the persistent stay flexible on method while locked onto the... paulgraham.com Essay The Right Kind of Stubborn Paul Graham
This is the actual data behind the "follow up more than you think" advice: only 8.5% of cold emails get a reply on their own,... Backlinko Article We Analyzed 12 Million Outreach Emails: Here's What We Learned Backlinko (with Pitchbox)
A practical, no-nonsense breakdown of the tradeoff between too few follow-ups (leaving replies on the table) and too many... lemlist Article How Many Cold Email Follow-Ups Should You Send to Increase Your Replies? lemlist
This lays out an actual day-by-day schedule for spacing your follow-ups, which is the part most advice skips in favor of just... GrowthList Article Cold Email Follow Up Timing: Best Schedule GrowthList
A compact stat sheet built from Woodpecker's own send data across many campaigns, showing that adding even one follow-up lifts... Woodpecker Article These Stats Prove The Importance of Follow-up Emails Margaret Sikora
A clear-headed synthesis of the various industry numbers (the classic 80/5 stat that 80% of sales need about five touches, plus... Nutshell Article How Many Follow-Up Emails Should You Send? Nutshell
Written specifically to answer this question, pulling together response-rate curves across follow-up counts so you can see... Instantly Article How Many Times Should You Really Follow Up with a Prospect? Instantly
Barry documents, with real numbers, how he grew ConvertKit through direct outreach and relentless follow-up rather than a... nathanbarry.com Essay Direct Sales for Bootstrapped SaaS Startups: from $1,300 to $725,000 MRR Nathan Barry
A real, specific account of the actual cold email that got a company its first paying customers before it even had a name or a... Indie Hackers Thread The cold email that started a $100M/yr company Indie Hackers
A direct, practical comparison of the two channels this exact question is about, including what each is better suited for and... Cleverly Article Cold Email vs. LinkedIn Outreach: What Gets Better Results? Cleverly

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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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