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. Merge's founders sent hundreds of cold emails over six months, not to pitch but to understand who actually had the integrations... First Round Review Article Merge's Path to Product-Market Fit: The Importance of Founder-led Sales First Round Review
  2. A solo founder documents exactly how cold email grew their product to real revenue over six months, including what changed in... Indie Hackers Thread · 5 min read The untapped power of cold email, your secret weapon Indie Hackers community
  3. Close is a sales CRM built by working sales leaders, and this piece (reviewed by co-founder Steli Efti) draws the line between... Close Article 17 Best Cold Email Subject Lines for Higher Open Rates Kimberlee Meier
  4. Braun sells cold email coaching for a living and this is his most-shared list, twenty-eight real subject lines with the... LinkedIn (Josh Braun) Thread 28 Cold Email Subject Lines That Get Opened Josh Braun
  5. This one breaks the mechanics down further than the 28-line list, naming distinct patterns like the problem-focused question,... Josh Braun Article 9 Subject Lines That Motivated Prospects to Open Your Cold Email Josh Braun
  6. This is the actual data behind one of the rules founders lean on: Boomerang analyzed over 300,000 emails and found all-caps... Boomerang Article The One Thing You Should Never Do In An Email Subject (Based on Data) Brendan G.
  7. This is the source for the word-count guidance worth knowing before you draft. Boomerang's data, drawn from roughly 40 million... Boomerang Article 7 Tips for Getting More Responses to Your Emails (With Data!) Boomerang
  8. Written for the exact founders who are about to cold email investors, so the advice is calibrated to your actual reader:... Hustle Fund (The Founder Playbook) Article Write Better Subject Lines Hustle Fund (The Founder Playbook)
  9. A large, organized reference bank when you want more raw examples to riff on than the individual essays above give you. It is... Hunter.io Article 89 Effective Cold Email Subject Lines & How to Craft Them Hunter.io
  10. A solo founder's first-hand accounting of what actually moved the needle after hundreds of real sends, useful because it... Indie Hackers Thread 800+ Cold Emails Later: Here's What Actually Moves the Needle Indie Hackers
  11. Hunter Walk is a working VC who has actually funded companies off cold emails, so this comes with real skin in the game rather... Hunter Walk (Homebrew) Essay A Strong Cold Email Always Beats A Weak Warm One Hunter Walk (Homebrew)
  12. This is a tightly reasoned section of a widely respected reference guide on venture capital, written for exactly your... Holloway Article Cold Emails (Raising Venture Capital guide) Holloway
  13. This is the canonical essay on the psychology of fundraising, and it explains exactly why desperation kills your odds: 'there... Paul Graham Essay A Fundraising Survival Guide Paul Graham
  14. This shows the real, full text of a cold email that turned into a $250,000 check from Mark Cuban, then a second $250,000 nine... Inc. Article Here's the Email Factmata's Founder Used to Get a $500,000 Investment From Mark Cuban Inc.
  15. This free 83-page book from the founders of AngelList is the original modern text on distilling a startup into a message... Venture Hacks (Naval Ravikant & Babak Nivi) Book Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Startups to Investors Venture Hacks (Naval Ravikant & Babak Nivi)
  16. Written by the President of TDK Ventures, this is a sitting investor naming exactly what separates a disciplined cold email... TDK Ventures (Nicolas Sauvage) Essay The Cold Email VCs Want TDK Ventures (Nicolas Sauvage)
  17. This piece pulls direct, attributed advice from named investors, including Jason Lemkin, Michael Seibel, and other operating... LeadLoft Article How to Cold Email Investors: 19 Tips From VCs & Angels LeadLoft
  18. Visible builds tools for founder-investor communication, so this guide is oriented around what actually gets a reply rather... Visible.vc Article How to Cold Email Investors in 2026 (Templates + Tips) Visible.vc
  19. Read the actual law once, at least the consent and notice sections, so you are not relying on someone else's paraphrase.... Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India Article · ~30 pages The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (Official Text) Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India
  20. Translates the DPDP Act's consent rules into what actually changes for a business, not a legal treatise. It is the piece to... India Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates) Article · ~8 min read Understanding India's DPDP Consent Management Rules for Businesses India Briefing (Dezan Shira & Associates)
  21. One paragraph of the actual regulation, the one that says direct marketing can count as a legitimate interest under GDPR. When... gdpr-info.eu Article · 1 page GDPR Recital 47: Legitimate Interest and Direct Marketing gdpr-info.eu
  22. The regulator's own explanation of what a compliant commercial email looks like in the US, including the part founders skip:... Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Article CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
  23. The UK regulator's own walkthrough of the three-part test (purpose, necessity, balancing) that decides whether you can cold... UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) Article When Can We Rely on Legitimate Interests? UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)
  24. Written by a company that sells a cold email tool, so it is pragmatic rather than legalistic: what to put in your first email... Hunter.io Article · ~6 min read How to Do Cold Emailing After the GDPR Hunter.io

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
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →