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. The clearest breakdown of why an app teenagers loved (and adults underrated) became one of the most powerful products in the... Eugene Wei (eugenewei.com) Essay · ~40 min read TikTok and the Sorting Hat Eugene Wei
  2. A conversation with someone who built a business decoding young people's wants, aimed at founders who did not grow up inside... a16z Podcast (Tiffany Zhong, Connie Chan) Podcast · ~40 min listen Designing for, Marketing to, and Partnering with Gen Z Andreessen Horowitz
  3. The founders started Saturn as University of Pennsylvania students and grew it to millions of young users across thousands of... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~20 min read Lessons on building a viral consumer app: The story of Saturn Lenny Rachitsky
  4. Video · ~90 min video How to consistently go viral: Nikita Bier's playbook for consumer apps Nikita Bier
  5. The trap in trend spotting is confident prediction, and Tetlock's research shows the people who are actually good stay... Penguin Random House Book · 352 pages Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
  6. Before apps, serious thinkers kept a commonplace book, one running log of quotes, observations, and ideas they could mine... RyanHoliday.net Article · 10 min read How and Why to Keep a Commonplace Book Ryan Holiday
  7. Spotting a trend is easy, understanding why it is happening takes more than one lens, and this is Farnam Street's hub on... Farnam Street (fs.blog) Article · 30 min read Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions Shane Parrish
  8. Trend spotting improves fast when you publish what you are noticing, because the network corrects you and feeds you better... swyx.io Essay · 12 min read Learn in Public Shawn (swyx) Wang
  9. Evans is a working example of the habit you are trying to build: a weekly pass over the noise that pulls out what actually... ben-evans.com Article · Weekly newsletter Benedict's Newsletter Benedict Evans
  10. Each year a16z partners publish the shifts they expect, and reading it shows you what a finished trend thesis looks like when... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Article · 20 min read Big Ideas in Tech 2026 a16z partners
  11. This is a compact, four step framework for turning fuzzy early signals into something you can act on, aimed at operators rather... Fast Company Article · 8 min read A four-step framework to spot weak signals of disruption Fast Company
  12. The short answer asks you to notice the same signal from three unrelated directions, and this essay is about exactly that... nabeelqu.co Essay · 15 min read How to Understand Things Nabeel S. Qureshi
  13. Levels documents committing to ship a new startup every month for a year, in public, mostly to unglamorous silence, until two... levels.io Essay I'm Launching 12 Startups in 12 Months Pieter Levels
  14. A crowdsourced list of over a hundred directories and communities where you can list or relaunch a product, useful as a... Indie Hackers Template Relaunch like a pro: 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product Indie Hackers community
  15. This explains why buying upvotes is a waste of money, not just against the rules. Votes are weighted by account quality and... Product Hunt Help Center Article How does Product Hunt ensure fair voting and prevent spam or vote manipulation? Product Hunt Help Center
  16. The nuts-and-bolts mechanics of the submission flow itself: what fields you'll fill in, what's required, and how the process... Product Hunt Help Center Article How to post a product Product Hunt Help Center
  17. A founder walking through the exact playbook that took his product to #1 Product of the Day, Week, and SaaS Product of the... Tom Dekan Article How we won Product of the Week on Product Hunt Tom Dekan
  18. A working engineer's own account of what actually happened when he posted to Hacker News, including timing, title wording, and... Lucas Costa Essay How to Do a Successful Hacker News Launch Lucas Costa
  19. Marc Lou has shipped and launched many small products, and this is his practical rundown of how Show HN posts actually move... Marc Lou Article How to Launch a Startup on Hacker News Marc Lou
  20. The companion piece to Marc Lou's Hacker News guide, written from the same practical, ship-it perspective but for Product Hunt... Marc Lou Article How to Launch a Startup on Product Hunt Marc Lou
  21. A practical, no-nonsense comparison of what actually differs across these three specific channels: what each one rewards, what... DEV Community Article Indie Dev Launch Strategy: Getting Traction on Product Hunt, Hacker News, and Reddit DEV Community
  22. The most thorough practical guide we found on organic Reddit specifically, going beyond just avoiding a ban into how to... Karmic Article Reddit Marketing Guide: The Reddit Organic Marketing Guide for Startups and Scale Ups Karmic
  23. Jackson uses how bands sell out tour dates, announcing months ahead, building anticipation in stages, as a working template for... justinjackson.ca Essay · 10 min read How to build demand before you launch Justin Jackson
  24. A plain, no-jargon explainer of building in public for founders who have heard the term but aren't sure what to actually post... Indie Hackers Article · 8 min read What Is Building in Public? (Explained Simply) Indie Hackers

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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