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.

  1. This is the piece nearly every other CAC explainer is quoting from, so go to the source. Skok walks through how CAC, lifetime... For Entrepreneurs Essay SaaS Metrics 2.0: A Guide to Measuring and Improving What Matters David Skok In 5 answers
  2. This is the clearest plain-language walkthrough of the one thing that trips up Indian founders billing abroad: your foreign... TaxGuru Article · Long read (with 23 Q&As) GST for Freelancers & Consultants: A Complete Guide for Domestic & Foreign Clients Mohd Muaz Malik In 5 answers
  3. This is the one term sheet to benchmark your own against. YC wrote out the fairest single-page term sheet they could from... Y Combinator Template · 20 min read + Word template A Standard and Clean Series A Term Sheet (with downloadable template) Jason Kwon and Aaron Harris In 5 answers
  4. This is the guide for the check-in itself: what to actually say when you sit down. Perel names the three things co-founder... First Round Review Article · 20 min read How to Fix the Co-Founder Fights You're Sick of Having: Lessons from Couples Therapist Esther Perel Esther Perel (via First Round Review) In 5 answers
  5. This is the legal spine for doing it cleanly under Indian rules. It spells out why parting during probation is the cleanest... India Briefing Article · 15 min read A Guide to Terminating Employment in India Dezan Shira & Associates In 5 answers
  6. This breaks down the four things you will run monthly (TDS under Section 192, PF via UAN, ESI for sub-21,000 wages, PT capped... Razorpay Article · 15 min read Payroll Compliance: PF, ESI, PT and TDS Explained RazorpayX Payroll In 5 answers
  7. This is the government's own checklist, so it settles the entity question straight: Pvt Ltd if you plan to raise (investors... Startup India Article · 12 min read Legal and Regulatory Checklist for Startups in India Startup India (DPIIT, Ministry of Commerce and Industry) In 5 answers
  8. Jackson breaks fit into levels and asks how acute the problem is, how reachable the audience is, and how differentiated your... Lenny's Newsletter Article · about 20 min read A Framework for Finding Product-Market Fit Todd Jackson (First Round Capital) In 5 answers
  9. The free, original essay that defined the MVP before the book existed, written plainly by the person who coined the term. It... Startup Lessons Learned (Eric Ries) Essay · ~15 min read Minimum Viable Product: a guide Eric Ries In 5 answers
  10. The qualitative half of the answer, told through founders describing the moment things flipped: inbound you cannot keep up... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~2,000 words What it feels like when you've found product-market fit Lenny Rachitsky In 5 answers
  11. This is the piece written for exactly your situation: no audience, no network, no obvious way to reach the people you need.... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Article When You Have Nothing: How to Find Customers to Interview Jason Cohen In 5 answers
  12. A relaxed, honest conversation about founder selling aimed at exactly the bootstrapper or first-timer who dreads sales. Steli... Indie Hackers Podcast Podcast · ~60 min Sales Tips Every Founder Should Know, with Steli Efti Courtland Allen, Steli Efti In 5 answers
  13. Podcast · 50 min How Khadim Batti Built Whatfix Into a Global SaaS Leader (500 cold emails to first customers) Khadim Batti with Prime Venture Partners In 5 answers
  14. Blank, who built customer development, uses a real founder story to show how a team defaulted to 'build a smaller product' when... steveblank.com Article · 7 min read An MVP is not a Cheaper Product, It's about Smart Learning Steve Blank In 5 answers
  15. Steve Blank's argument for searching for a business model before building one, the get out of the building philosophy in short... Harvard Business Review Article · 15 min read Why the Lean Start-Up Changes Everything Steve Blank In 5 answers
  16. Jason Levin grew a product to $100K ARR on Bubble with no engineers, then raised $3M and re-platformed to an API. It is a clean... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~20 min read From a $6.90 newsletter to $3M API: How a non-coder built Memelord Jason Levin In 5 answers
  17. This is the other half of your answer: what to do once the thing works. It walks a non-technical founder through when and how... TechCrunch Article How to hire your first engineer: A guide for nontechnical founders TechCrunch In 5 answers
  18. The CTO of India's largest broker explains how a tiny team scales huge load by optimizing the application before touching... Zerodha Tech Blog Article · 15 min read Scaling with common sense Kailash Nadh In 5 answers
  19. The foundational essay behind YC's whole worldview. Graham argues a startup needs good people, something users want, and low... paulgraham.com Essay How to Start a Startup Paul Graham In 5 answers
  20. Finding a great engineer is only half the battle when everyone is competing for them, and this piece is about the other half:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · Medium read Convincing engineers to join your team Y Combinator In 5 answers
  21. Linear is a small, largely distributed team that ships a famously polished product, and this breaks down how they organize... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~20 min read How Linear builds product Lenny Rachitsky In 5 answers
  22. Users judge attractive products as more usable, which is why polish matters and also why it can hide real problems. As a... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 8 min read The Aesthetic-Usability Effect Kate Moran In 5 answers
  23. Before you optimize a byte, you need to know who you are building for, and Pai's India1, India2, India3 framing is the clearest... SajithPai.com Essay · Long read India2, English Tax and Building for the Next Billion Users Sajith Pai In 5 answers
  24. This is the practical how-to for actually running the weekly cadence, covering the part most founders get stuck on: recruiting... Product Talk Article Customer Interviews: How to Recruit, What to Ask, and How to Synthesize What You Learn Teresa Torres In 5 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

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
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