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.

Video · 20 min How To Keep Your Users Y Combinator Startup School (YouTube)
The Naukri.com founder, using Zomato as the case study, makes the same case as our answer from an Indian boardroom: valuation... Forbes India Article · 8 min read Startups Must Move Away From Vanity Metrics Sanjeev Bikhchandani
Ivan Zhao talks in detail about the years Notion nearly died, including a full technical rewrite after the first version... Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · 1 hour 12 minutes Notion's lost years, its near collapse during Covid, staying small to move fast, the joy and suffering of building horizontal, more | Ivan Zhao (CEO and co-founder) Ivan Zhao, hosted by Lenny Rachitsky
Rand Fishkin writes with total candor about the mistakes, product failures, and eventual founder exit that shaped Moz, then... Penguin Random House Book Lost and Founder: A Painfully Honest Field Guide to the Startup World Rand Fishkin
This episode goes directly at the insecurity behind the question: founders worry that selling themselves makes their company... The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten Podcast Should Founders Be Doing Sales? Will Prospects Take Their Startups Serious? The Startup Chat with Steli & Hiten
This is the data behind if you talk less than the customer, you're doing it right. Gong analyzed hundreds of thousands of real... Gong Labs Article · ~10 min read Mastering the talk-to-listen ratio in sales calls Gong Labs
A tight, practical checklist for the specific call type this question is about: the first real conversation with a prospect. It... Gong Article · ~8 min read 8 Things to Consider Before Your Next Discovery Call Gong Labs
Jason Lemkin makes the case that the person who ghosted you almost never made a conscious decision to ignore you, they just got... SaaStr Article VCs Don't Really Ghost You. They are Just Prospects. Treat Them as Such. Jason Lemkin
Video Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | Talks at Google Chris Voss
A short, concrete story from Steli Efti about following up with a single unresponsive investor 48 times before finally getting... LinkedIn Article How I followed up with an investor 48 times Steli Efti
Gong analyzed tens of thousands of real sales calls and found that deals which felt like sure things often died quietly because... Gong Article Why Deals Fail to Close and How to Succeed Next Time Gong
A practical reference you can keep open during calls: real objections, like it's too expensive or I need to think about it,... HubSpot Article Objection Handling: 44 Common Sales Objections & How to Respond Mark Burdon
Two YC partners talk plainly about why founders who avoid rejection end up avoiding their customers altogether, and why the... Y Combinator Video Dalton & Michael: Successful founders are OK with rejection Y Combinator
A concrete framework, from a long-running sales training school, for making sure every call ends with a mutually agreed,... Sandler Training Article How to Ensure Every Call Ends with Next Steps Frank Gustafson
Jason Lemkin's argument is that a single first rep gives you almost no signal: you can't tell if a slow start is the person,... SaaStr Article · 10 min read When You Hire Your First Sales Rep, Just Make Sure You Hire Two Jason Lemkin
Roberge built HubSpot's sales org from zero using data instead of instinct, and this is his framework for hiring, training, and... Mark Roberge Book · 250 pages The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million Mark Roberge
Jason Lemkin runs through the specific, repeated mistakes he sees founders make when hiring too early or hiring the wrong... SaaStr Podcast · 35 min SaaStr Podcast #379: The Top 10 Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Their First Sales Team Jason Lemkin
This is the practical, step by step version of the discovery call our answer says to run before you ever demo: what to ask, in... Close Article · ~15 min read 18 Steps to a Successful Discovery Call Close
Our answer's second half is about treating sales as a repeatable pipeline, not one-off calls, and that needs somewhere to write... HubSpot Tool HubSpot Pipeline Management HubSpot
Video · about 30 min The Cold Email Formula That Made Over $1,000,000 with Sam Parr Sam Parr
A short, specific essay on why leading with the customer's need, not your product, is what makes a pitch land, with a simple... Dave Bailey Essay How to Sell the Problem Before Selling the Solution Dave Bailey
Gong built this from analyzing hundreds of thousands of real sales emails, so the advice on what to put in a post-call recap,... Gong Article · 12 min read 6 Cold Email Follow-Ups that Speed Up Deals Gong
When you need the actual words for the same-day recap email, this gives you five ready structures for different types of calls,... HubSpot Template · 8 min read 5 Recap Email Templates to Use After Connect, Discovery, and Demo Calls HubSpot
Written for the founder who built the product and is now terrified of the word sales, this argues the skill set is closer to... Y Combinator Startup Library Essay Enterprise sales for hackers Y Combinator Startup Library

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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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