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 honest counterweight to the romance of the naive disruptor, and it maps onto your short answer directly. It shows... Kellogg Insight, Northwestern Article · Medium read Sure, Industry Outsiders Can Bring Fresh Ideas. But Are They Better Entrepreneurs? Kellogg Insight
  2. Marty Cagan draws the line cleanly: if you are going to fall in love, fall in love with the problem, not the solution, and get... Silicon Valley Product Group Essay · ~6 min read Discovery: Problem vs. Solution Marty Cagan
  3. Choosing between two ideas is a bet under uncertainty, and Duke gives you the mindset for it: judge the decision by its... Annie Duke Book · ~272 pages Thinking in Bets Annie Duke
  4. This is the simple artifact your answer describes: list the three or four criteria you both care about, weight them, and score... Smartsheet Template · template Weighted Decision Matrix Templates Smartsheet
  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. Four YC partners talk through what is actually working in AI companies they fund, including which ideas look like second... Y Combinator Podcast · ~50 min The Truth About Building AI Startups Today (Lightcone Podcast Ep. 1) Garry Tan, Jared Friedman, Diana Hu, Harj Taggar
  7. This is the direct counter to the fear in your short answer, that a platform update erases your product overnight. Chen argues... Andrew Chen Essay · 20 min read Revenge of the GPT Wrappers: Defensibility in a World of Commoditized AI Models Andrew Chen
  8. Before you commit, you need to know whether the value from your AI idea accrues to you or to an incumbent who bolts the feature... Elad Gil Essay · 12 min read AI: Startup Vs Incumbent Value Elad Gil
  9. A map of which AI markets already have clear winners and which are still wide open, which is the practical version of asking... Elad Gil Essay · 12 min read AI Market Clarity Elad Gil
  10. This explains why niches once dismissed as too small (laundromats, vets, clinics) become real businesses when AI absorbs the... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 15 min read Vertical SaaS: Now with AI Inside Angela Strange and James da Costa
  11. The core move in our short answer is decomposing a workflow into steps a model can now do. This piece frames every workflow as... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 15 min read The Rise of Computer Use and Agentic Coworkers Eric Zhou, Yoko Li, Seema Amble, Jennifer Li
  12. A structured playbook for picking a vertical where AI now delivers real leverage and building something that feels less like... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 20 min read Building Vertical AI: An Early-Stage Playbook for Founders Bessemer Venture Partners
  13. Once you have spotted the opening, this gives you concrete principles for making it defensible, heavy on proprietary data and... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 15 min read Ten Principles for Building Strong Vertical AI Businesses Bessemer Venture Partners
  14. A clear-eyed take on what actually changes when a model can do a task at good-enough quality and cheaply, and where humans... Every Essay · 15 min read After Automation Dan Shipper
  15. To spot what is newly possible you need to know what the models can suddenly do that they could not before, and this essay maps... Sequoia Capital Essay · 18 min read Generative AI's Act o1: The Reasoning Era Begins Sonya Huang and Pat Grady
  16. A broad map of where AI is actually gaining traction across infrastructure, horizontal, and vertical use cases, so you can see... Bessemer Venture Partners Article · 30 min read The State of AI 2025 Bessemer Venture Partners
  17. The clearest argument that idea generation is a muscle, not a gift. Altucher's practice, write ten ideas a day until it becomes... James Altucher Essay · 15 min read The Ultimate Guide for Becoming an Idea Machine James Altucher
  18. A working set of prompts that push your thinking to extremes to shake loose non-obvious ideas. When your list feels stale or... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Article · 15 min read Extreme brainstorming questions to trigger new, better ideas Jason Cohen
  19. Isenberg builds a fresh batch of concrete idea candidates on each episode, often mining Reddit threads, comment sections, and... Greg Isenberg Podcast · Ongoing, ~45 min episodes The Startup Ideas Podcast Greg Isenberg
  20. A tool that scans forums, search trends, and communities to surface pre-researched idea candidates, with a free idea of the... IdeaBrowser (Greg Isenberg) Tool · Web tool IdeaBrowser Greg Isenberg
  21. This is the practical mechanics of exactly the habit in our answer: keep a running list of daily annoyances and workarounds,... Founder's Guide Article · 10 min read The Problem List Method: business ideas from real daily frustrations Founder's Guide
  22. A short, focused piece on the single skill our answer is built around: noticing what everyone else walks past. It names the... Start as Sprout Article · 8 min read The Quiet Skill of Noticing Problems Start as Sprout
  23. This is the counterweight to the venture scale market advice: proof that a small market can be a great business if you are... Rob Walling Essay The Stair Step Method of Bootstrapping Rob Walling
  24. Speaks directly to the trap of confusing a giant TAM number with a real business. It explains why investors discount inflated... HSBC Innovation Banking Article Beyond the TAM Slide: What Investors Really Want HSBC Innovation Banking

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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