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. Free templates including the Positioning Canvas and a messaging document you can fill in for your own product. They turn the... aprildunford.com Template · Downloadable April Dunford Positioning Templates April Dunford In 2 answers
  2. A clear, jargon free explainer of the problem plus practical seeding strategies (single side focus, faking supply,... Sharetribe Marketplace Glossary Tool · 10 min read What Is the Chicken and Egg Problem in Marketplaces? Sharetribe In 2 answers
  3. An all in one, generously free product analytics tool that early teams can set up in minutes, with events, funnels, session... PostHog Tool PostHog Product Analytics PostHog In 2 answers
  4. Your short answer says to watch real sessions, and this is the most common tool for doing exactly that: replaying where new... Hotjar Tool · self-serve tool Hotjar Session Recordings Hotjar In 2 answers
  5. When you need people to feel the flow, not just read a pitch, a clickable Figma prototype gets you there without code. This... Figma Tool Guide to prototyping in Figma Figma In 2 answers
  6. The ready-to-use questionnaire from the Founder Dating Playbook, covering roles, values, money, commitment, and how you each... First Round Review Template 50 Questions to Explore With a Potential Co-Founder Gloria Lin In 2 answers
  7. A free calculator that turns the benchmarks into concrete grant sizes for a specific role, level, and stage. Plug in your early... Index Ventures Tool · interactive tool OptionPlan by Index Ventures Index Ventures In 2 answers
  8. A free, no signup whiteboard with a deliberately hand drawn look, ideal for sketching screens and flows without falling into... Excalidraw Tool Excalidraw Excalidraw In 2 answers
  9. When a developer needs to walk you through a feature but you are twelve hours apart, a short recorded screen video does what a... Loom (Atlassian) Tool Loom (asynchronous video updates) Loom (Atlassian) In 2 answers
  10. This is a ready-to-use set of lightweight templates for recording why technical decisions were made, so the reasoning survives... GitHub (joelparkerhenderson) Template · Repo with templates Architecture Decision Records: Templates and Examples Joel Parker Henderson In 2 answers
  11. A fast way to check whether a screen reads clearly in the first impression, which is often where clunky starts. Show people a... Five Second Test (Lyssna) Tool Five Second Test Five Second Test (Lyssna) In 2 answers
  12. A finance-grade reference for the actual formulas, with a calculator so you can sanity-check your TAM, SAM, and SOM arithmetic.... Wall Street Prep Tool Market Sizing: Formula and Calculator Wall Street Prep In 2 answers
  13. Riley spends dozens of hours per report distilling an emerging market into a five minute read with players, opportunities, and... trends.vc Tool Trends.vc Dru Riley In 2 answers
  14. The official rules for posting to Hacker News's Show HN section, worth reading before you try this channel again: it tells you... Hacker News Tool Show HN Guidelines Y Combinator In 2 answers
  15. A short, free checklist you can hold next to your draft while writing your first cold email, not just the subject line but the... Josh Braun Template 15 Cold Email Copywriting Principles Josh Braun In 2 answers
  16. Before you send a single cold email to a real prospect, send one to this tool. It gives you a spam score out of 10, checks your... mail-tester.com Tool Mail Tester mail-tester.com In 2 answers
  17. A ready made list of open, past behavior questions you can literally bring into your next call, grouped so you're not... Indie Hackers Template 24 User Interview Questions you can use (free template too!) Joshua Tabansi In 2 answers
  18. This is the practical way to act on the route around your inner circle entirely part of your short answer: it is a marketplace... Respondent.io Tool Respondent Respondent.io In 2 answers
  19. Before you can interview a competitor's customers, you need to know where they actually spend time online. This tool searches... SparkToro Tool SparkToro SparkToro In 2 answers
  20. This is a genuinely usable, free spreadsheet template plus a five step process for writing down your ICP with real specificity... Notion Capital Template Get uncomfortably narrow with an Ideal Customer Profile template Notion Capital In 2 answers
  21. An AI-chat-to-app builder that turns a plain-English prompt into a working full-stack app fast, the fastest path to a prototype... lovable.dev Tool · platform Lovable, AI App Builder Lovable
  22. The official Indian government registry to run a free trademark knockout search before you commit to a name, the primary... Government of India (ipindia.gov.in) Tool · Tool Public Trademark Search, IP India Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks
  23. Once you have a hunch about who your best customers are, you need to check it against behaviour, and Mixpanel is a real... Mixpanel Tool Cohort analysis: how to read the chart, choose a platform, and turn retention into growth Mixpanel
  24. This is the most durable, genuinely free one-page ICP format your whole team can adopt without setting up a spreadsheet or... HubSpot Template · One-page fillable template plus short guide HubSpot's Free Ideal Customer Profile Template (Make My Persona) HubSpot

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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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