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 3 minutes Steve Blank: Want Your Startup to Succeed? Get Out of the Building Steve Blank (Inc. Magazine) In 2 answers
  2. Video · About 30 minutes How to Get Users and Grow Gustaf Alstromer In 2 answers
  3. Video · about 1 hour Mastering onboarding | Lauryn Isford (Head of Growth at Airtable) Lenny Rachitsky and Lauryn Isford In 2 answers
  4. YC's David Lieb walks through cohort retention: watching each week's new users and asking how many actually come back. For a... Y Combinator Startup School Video · ~20 min How To Improve Cohort Retention David Lieb In 2 answers
  5. YC is openly skeptical of a remote co-founder (they discount the plan if a linchpin is distant), which makes this the most... Y Combinator Video · 35 min Best Practices for Managing a Remote Team Y Combinator In 2 answers
  6. Video · ~10 min Product-market fit with Michael Seibel Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  7. Video · ~35 min Growth for Startups Gustaf Alstromer In 2 answers
  8. Video · 50 min Stanley Tang (DoorDash): Scaling the Unscalable Stanley Tang In 2 answers
  9. A short clip of Paul Graham explaining the idea in his own words, useful if you want the core of the essay before committing to... Startup Archive Video · 5 min Paul Graham explains what it means to do things that don't scale Paul Graham In 2 answers
  10. Video · ~20 min Solving the Chicken or Egg Problem James Currier In 2 answers
  11. Video · ~45 min Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (How to Start a Startup, Lecture 4) Adora Cheung In 2 answers
  12. Video · 5 min Debt Metaphor Ward Cunningham In 2 answers
  13. Taggar covers the full arc: why a co-founder matters, when to bring one on, where to look, and how to keep the relationship... Y Combinator Startup Library Video How To Find A Co-Founder Harj Taggar In 2 answers
  14. Video · 50 min How to Start a Startup, Lecture 2: Team and Execution Sam Altman In 2 answers
  15. A Startup School talk with a YC partner and Triplebyte's co-founder on finding and hiring key engineers from scratch.... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · Around 45 minutes Building an engineering team Harj Taggar and Ammon Bartram In 2 answers
  16. Video · 35 min The Startup Playbook for Hiring Your First Engineers and AEs Y Combinator In 2 answers
  17. Video · ~24 min Usability Test Demo by Steve Krug Steve Krug In 2 answers
  18. Video · 10 min Build product. Talk to users. Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  19. YC founders talk candidly about disagreements that felt existential and how they worked through them. It normalizes that a hard... Y Combinator Library Video · ~30 min How To Navigate Co-Founder Disputes Y Combinator In 2 answers
  20. A tarpit idea is one that looks easy and gets praise from everyone, yet has quietly killed hundreds of founders who tried it.... Y Combinator Library Video · ~20 min Tarpit Ideas: The Sequel Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  21. The same argument as the essay, but spoken, if you would rather watch than read. Dixon walks through real markets that looked... Andreessen Horowitz Video · 4 min Why the Next Big Thing Will Look Like a Toy Chris Dixon In 2 answers
  22. Video · ~30 minutes Nandan Nilekani on India's Digital Public Infrastructure Nandan Nilekani In 2 answers
  23. Video How to Validate an App Idea in 2026 (Customer Interviews, Landing Pages & Reddit) Varun Mayya In 2 answers
  24. A short, plain spoken walkthrough of the same mistakes in action, useful if watching an example lands faster for you than... Nielsen Norman Group Video · 6 minutes Five User Interview Mistakes to Avoid (in 5 Minutes) Therese Fessenden In 2 answers

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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