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. Video · About 50 min How to Start a Startup, Lecture 1: Ideas, Products, Teams and Execution Sam Altman and Dustin Moskovitz
  2. Video · ~20 min Kunal Shah on the Delta 4 Theory (TechSparks talk) Kunal Shah
  3. Video · ~1 hr Paras Chopra in conversation with Kunal Shah (CRED curious) Paras Chopra and Kunal Shah
  4. Bob Moesta, one of the originators of Jobs to be Done, shows how to interview people about the struggling moment that made them... Business of Software (Bob Moesta) Video · About 45 min Demand-Side Sales 101 (talk) Bob Moesta
  5. This is YC's direct answer to your question, walking through how partners spot ideas that only became buildable once models got... Y Combinator Video · ~15 min How To Get AI Startup Ideas Y Combinator
  6. Video · 55 min Balaji Srinivasan on Navigating the Idea Maze and Finding a Co-Founder Balaji Srinivasan
  7. Video · 75 min Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital: Target Big Markets Don Valentine
  8. Video · ~90 min Startup Secrets: Building a Value Proposition Michael Skok
  9. A short clip where Gurley explains why top-down TAM estimates are often badly wrong, using Uber and the early cell phone market... Startup Archive Video · 5 min Bill Gurley on Why Founders and Investors Should Not Pay Too Much Attention to TAM Bill Gurley
  10. A short primer on how real technologies move from ignored to inevitable in an S shaped curve, and why early flatness fools... Andreessen Horowitz Video · 4 min a16z Video: S-curves in Innovation Benedict Evans
  11. Two YC partners explain how products that looked small at launch grew into large markets, which reframes the worry that your... Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel, Y Combinator Video · ~14 min Simple Products That Became Big Companies Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel
  12. A short, well told talk arguing success is never pure meritocracy, and showing how to find and ethically use the edges you... TED Video · 14 min Startups, Entrepreneurship and Unfair Advantages (TEDxSOAS) Hasan Kubba
  13. The instinct to wait until you are perfectly ready, and to apologise for your starting point, is exactly what this talk names... TED Video · 13 min Teach girls bravery, not perfection Reshma Saujani
  14. Video · ~30 min How To Perfectly Pitch Your Seed Stage Startup Michael Seibel, Y Combinator
  15. A clear explainer arguing that founder-market fit lives with the people who define and sell the product, and that outsiders can... Feel the Boot Video · ~18 min Founder/Market Fit: Your Startup's Early-Stage Advantage Cofounder Adam (Feel the Boot)
  16. The clearest explanation of the access gap, backed by data from real pitch rooms: investors ask women prevention questions... TED Video · 16 min The Real Reason Female Entrepreneurs Get Less Funding Dana Kanze
  17. Video · 48 min Clayton Christensen: Disruptive Innovation (Saïd Business School lecture) Clayton Christensen
  18. Video Kunal Shah: Exploring Consumer Psychology (Return on India, Ep. 6) Kunal Shah
  19. Video The Future is Default Global (with Angela Strange and Anish Acharya) Angela Strange and Anish Acharya
  20. Video · 60 min Intro to Large Language Models (1 hour talk) Andrej Karpathy
  21. Video · ~20 min Delta 4 theory Kunal Shah
  22. Video 2,851 Miles (regulatory capture and startups) Bill Gurley
  23. Video · ~90 min video How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier's playbook for consumer apps Nikita Bier
  24. Video · 12 min Superhuman's waitlist wasn't about FOMO Rahul Vohra

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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