Starting Up

The resources founders actually use.

Every essay, video, podcast, book and tool behind 1,327 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.

Written by an India-based UX writer, this piece is a useful reality check on why product copy still gets ignored at many Indian... UX Content Collective Article · ~8 min read UX writing is on the rise in India Sidika Sehgal
Practical guidance from someone who has placed many founding designers, on when the hire actually pays off and how to run the... Andy Budd Article How to Hire Your First Founding Designer (and Not Regret It Later) Andy Budd
The counterargument worth hearing: that a strong designer earns their keep before polish, by shaping the product around real... Andy Budd Essay Everyone Talks About Product-Market Fit. A Good Designer Can Help You Find It. Andy Budd
A calm, structured walkthrough of hiring your first designer: what to look for, how to scope the role, and how to evaluate... Designer Fund Article A Founder's Guide to Hiring your First Designer Heather Phillips
From a former Facebook VP of Design, this clarifies what senior design judgment actually buys you, which is the "taste" you... The Looking Glass Essay How to Spot a World-Class Designer Julie Zhuo
Professionally designed, ready to drop in UI blocks and page templates from the makers of Tailwind CSS. It lets you assemble a... Tailwind CSS Tool Tailwind Plus (Tailwind UI) Tailwind CSS
Google's open design system with detailed guidance on layout, color, type, and components, plus ready implementations.... Google Tool Material Design 3 Google
One of the most complete free Figma UI kits, with a large library of components and page examples you can adapt. If you want a... Untitled UI Template Untitled UI (Free Figma UI Kit) Untitled UI
This backs the core of your answer: trust the emotion, not the diagnosis. Nielsen argues you should watch what users do rather... Nielsen Norman Group Essay First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users Jakob Nielsen
This is the bridge from a diagnosed problem to a concrete design change. The When / I want to / So I can format forces you to... Intercom Blog Article Designing Features Using Job Stories Alan Klement / Intercom
A thorough, free guide to the full range of usability tests, from moderated sessions to unmoderated remote tasks and... Maze Article Usability Testing Guide Maze
Very often clunky means slow, and slow is as much about perception as raw milliseconds. This explains how loading states,... MDN Web Docs Article Perceived Performance MDN Web Docs
If any of your users read Urdu, Arabic, or another right to left script, your whole layout may need to mirror, and this is the... Material Design 3 Article · 10 min read Bidirectionality and RTL Google Material Design
A practical designer facing walkthrough of building interfaces that survive translation, including how languages fall into... Material Design 3 Article · 12 min read Principles and Techniques for Effective Localization Google Material Design
Your short answer says never bury the language switch, and this is the definitive piece on getting that one control right. It... Smashing Magazine Article · 20 min read Designing A Perfect Language Selector UX Vitaly Friedman
A tighter, pattern focused companion to the language selector deep dive, good when you just want the checklist. It covers... Smart Interface Design Patterns Article · 10 min read Language Selector UX (Smart Interface Design Patterns) Vitaly Friedman
Written from inside an Indian VC firm that has watched many vernacular products grow, this argues that building for Bharat... Lightspeed Venture Partners Essay · 12 min read Building Multi-lingual Products for India Harsha Kumar
Pratilipi built India's largest vernacular storytelling platform across a dozen languages, and its founder walks through what... The Neon Show Podcast · 46 min Ranjeet Pratap Singh on the story and culture of Pratilipi Siddhartha Ahluwalia
When you are ready to think about the engineering, this shows how a product serving 62 languages keeps text out of the code and... The Airbnb Tech Blog Article · 15 min read Building Airbnb's Internationalization Platform Hua Zheng
Your short answer warns that translated text is often longer, and this piece shows exactly how that breaks buttons, menus, and... SimpleLocalize Article · 8 min read Why Text Expansion Breaks Your UI and How to Fix It SimpleLocalize
This is the cheapest way to catch translation problems before you have any translations. Pseudolocalization swaps your text for... Android Developers Tool · 10 min read Test Your App with Pseudolocales Google Android
The authoritative, vendor neutral starter checklist from the group that maintains web standards. It is short and covers the non... W3C Article · 5 min read Internationalization Quick Tips for the Web W3C Internationalization
If your Hindi or Tamil text renders as boxes or looks broken, it is usually a font problem, and Noto solves it for free across... Google Fonts Tool · font family Noto Fonts Google
Built from interviews with 65 practitioners working across borders, this is the deeper read for when localization becomes... Whitney Quesenbery and Daniel Szuc Book · Book, ~256 pages Global UX: Design and Research in a Connected World Whitney Quesenbery and Daniel Szuc

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

What are good startup ideas in India right now? The ideas Indian investors are backing in 2026 sit in a few places: AI built into one industry's daily work (vertical AI for B2B, where software fu... Beginner 5 resources → How do I find product-market fit? Narrow until a small group cannot do without you, then widen. Pick the segment where usage is strongest, talk to those people every week, and chang... Intermediate 9 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 → How do I build an MVP for my startup, step by step? Write down the one assumption that kills the idea if it is wrong, then build the cheapest thing that tests it and get it to real users within weeks... Beginner 9 resources → Which tool should I use to analyse qualitative data like interview notes? For a founder with a dozen interviews, Gemini Notebook, which is free, or Claude, free or $20 a month on Pro: load the transcripts, ask for the rec... Beginner 6 resources → How do I get my first client as a freelancer? Your first client is most likely someone who already knows you or someone they know, so start there before marketplaces. 1) Pick one service for on... Beginner 6 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 →