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.

The most complete single book on cold email as a repeatable system, from a writer who built his own business almost entirely on... Amazon Book · ~200 pages Cold Email Manifesto: How to Contact Anyone, Make More Sales, and Take Your Company to the Next Level Alex Berman, Robert Indries
This is a tactical playbook for turning a handful of happy customers into a channel of their own: reference calls, case... First Round Review Article The Startup's Guide to Customer Advocacy: How to Get Closer to Your Champions Kalina Bryant
This is the real time data point behind the ceiling described in the short answer, straight from a community of SaaS founders... SaaStr Article Does Outbound Still Work? 49% Of You Say No Jason Lemkin
Written in 1999, this book named the exact tension you are living through: interruption based outreach gets harder every year... Amazon Book Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers Seth Godin
Barry built ConvertKit's growth almost entirely on flywheels, content, community, and audience, rather than outbound, and this... nathanbarry.com Essay Creator Flywheels: The Operating System for Your Business Nathan Barry
Sheridan's pool company went from near bankruptcy to a category leader by answering every question a buyer might have in public... marcussheridan.com Book They Ask, You Answer: A Revolutionary Approach to Inbound Sales, Content Marketing, and Today's Digital Consumer Marcus Sheridan
This is a VC's field guide to the small community half of the short answer: what makes a founder built community actually drive... Bessemer Venture Partners Essay Five laws for community-led growth Bessemer Venture Partners
Zerodha reached crores of customers in India without ever running an ad or an outbound campaign, growing almost entirely on... Indian Startup News Article 'Customer love is a real superpower for us': Nithin Kamath on how Zerodha grew without advertising Indian Startup News
Dozens of founders answer in the comments with what actually worked for them, and cold email is a minority answer among stories... Hacker News Thread Ask HN: How do you get first 10 customers? Hacker News
Written for founders who would rather be building product than selling, this is a grounded guide to identifying and... Y Combinator Article Sales Advice for Technical Founders Y Combinator
Lemkin has watched thousands of B2B SaaS companies try outbound and this piece is his blunt verdict: it works, but only when it... SaaStr Article · 8 min read Outbound Always Works. If You Do It Right. And You Put In The Time. Jason Lemkin
Gong analyzed over 100,000 real cold calls to find what actually correlates with booking a meeting, so this is data, not... Gong Article · 12 min read Essential Cold Calling Tips: 17 Proven Techniques for Success Chris Orlob
A concise reference sheet that names the exact failure modes this question is about: leading questions like wouldn't you agree... Harvard Business School, Rock Center for Entrepreneurship Article · 5 min read Customer Discovery Basics Harvard Business School, Rock Center for Entrepreneurship
Alvarez names the specific mistakes founders make even after reading the theory: multi part questions that let people dodge the... cindyalvarez.com Essay · 8 min read 5 Common Customer Development Mistakes Cindy Alvarez
Wunker's Jobs to Be Done framework gets an Indian audience through this YourStory piece, useful if you want the underlying... YourStory Article · ~8 min read Unlocking customer-centric innovation with author Stephen Wunker Stephen Wunker
Wilcox tackles this exact question head on, and rejects the tempting stop when you stop learning something new answer since you... Customer Dev Labs Article How Many Customers Should You Interview? Justin Wilcox
A companion piece to the article above, this one focuses on the practical am I done yet moment inside a single discovery... Customer Dev Labs Article When Are You Done Interviewing Customers? Justin Wilcox
This is the academic study behind the qualitative research idea of saturation, the point past which new interviews stop adding... Field Methods (Sage) Article How Many Interviews Are Enough? An Experiment with Data Saturation and Variability Greg Guest, Arwen Bunce, Laura Johnson
A concise, practical primer on structuring an interview, from writing questions to avoiding leading language to taking useful... Nielsen Norman Group Article User Interviews 101 Maria Rosala and Kara Pernice
Zhuo, former Facebook VP of Product Design, gives seven specific questions for interviewing a prospective user, moving from... The Looking Glass Essay The Looking Glass: You Cannot Teach Wisdom Julie Zhuo
This is a straightforward, tactical rundown of where to source interviewees when your customer base is zero: relevant... Grow and Convert Article · ~12 min read How to Conduct Customer Interviews (Even When You Don't Have Customers) Thomas Carney
Once you've found someone willing to talk, this thread collects the actual questions other founders use, crowdsourced from... Indie Hackers Thread · ~5 min read Top Questions to Ask Customers During Their Interviews Indie Hackers
A specific, first-person account of finding an audience on Reddit from nothing, including which subreddits worked and how the... Indie Hackers Thread · ~8 min read How I Got My First 100 Users via Reddit Indie Hackers
This is the most exhaustive single list we found of concrete channels for sourcing interviewees, from personal network to... mfishbein.com Article · ~15 min read Customer Development: 14 Best Ways to Find Customers to Interview Mike Fishbein

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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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