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.

Benn Stancil cofounded a company that sold into large enterprises, and this essay is an unusually honest account of how slow,... Benn Stancil (Substack) Essay So you want to sell to the enterprise? Benn Stancil
Once you find your champion, the deal usually stalls on a security questionnaire, and do you have a SOC 2 report is often the... Vanta Tool An actionable guide to SOC 2 compliance for startups Vanta
This is the foundational text on separating people from the problem and negotiating on interests rather than positions, which... Program on Negotiation, Harvard Law School Book · 240 pages Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton
Sabeer Bhatia, who sold Hotmail to Microsoft, traces his negotiating instincts back to haggling in vegetable markets in... tim.blog Essay · 8 min read How to Negotiate like an Indian - 7 Rules Tim Ferriss
This is a short, practical guide to making invoice follow up a routine instead of an awkward one off, with an actual cadence:... Chaser Article · 7 min read 7 tips to collect unpaid invoices from customers Chaser
UPI Autopay lets you set up a recurring mandate on a customer's account so a subscription or installment debits automatically... Razorpay Tool UPI Autopay | Razorpay Razorpay
Lemkin's blunt answer is that the founder has to get the first 10 customers personally, through their own network and direct... Jason Lemkin (SaaStr) Article Dear SaaStr: How Do I Get My First 10 Customers? Jason Lemkin (SaaStr)
Picks up right where the previous piece leaves off: once you've decided to charge for the pilot, how do you actually structure... SaaStr Article Dear SaaStr: We're Starting a Big Paid Pilot. How Do We Maximize the Chances of Success? Jason Lemkin
A pricing consultant's argument that most companies discount reflexively instead of strategically, with a framework for... Harvard Business Review Article The Art of Discounting Rafi Mohammed
A short, sharp reminder that your price tells a story, and that cutting it to close a deal usually just tells the buyer the... Seth's Blog Essay On pricing Seth Godin
A free, plain-language contract template built specifically for running a paid pilot, with the scope, fee, and success criteria... Common Paper Template Pilot Agreement Common Paper
The other side of the discount question: sometimes a genuinely low price is the right strategy, not a concession. Jason Lemkin... SaaStr Article Dear SaaStr: When Does It Make Sense to Price Low in the Market? Jason Lemkin
A practical, no-nonsense walkthrough of what a pipeline is for and how to keep it honest, written by a company that sells CRM... Close Article The Ultimate Sales Pipeline Guide: How to Build, Manage, & Measure Close
When a spreadsheet finally starts to strain, this is the most common next step: unlimited contacts, deal tracking, and email... HubSpot Tool Free CRM for Small Business HubSpot
A short, honest account of the exact failure mode this question warns about: a solo founder loses a good prospect purely from... Indie Hackers Thread Built a dead-simple pipeline tracker after losing a deal because I forgot to follow up Indie Hackers
Welsh shows the exact two-step process he used to build a million-dollar pipeline from cold DMs: find people already talking... Justin Welsh Essay · 10 min read How to Get Replies from Your Dream Customers Justin Welsh
This is the LinkedIn half of the question: a simple system using alerts and triggers (funding news, new hires, press mentions)... Justin Welsh Essay · 10 min read How to Find More Customers on LinkedIn Justin Welsh
Ferriss writes from the other side of the inbox: what actually gets a reply from someone who gets hundreds of pitches a day.... Tim Ferriss Essay · 5 min read 5 Tips for E-mailing Busy People Tim Ferriss
Sethi gives word-for-word scripts and, more usefully, the follow-up move almost nobody does: closing the loop by telling... Ramit Sethi Article · 10 min read How To Connect w/ Busy People (& actually get HAPPY replies) Ramit Sethi
A straightforward six-part checklist (subject line, personalization, benefit to them, credibility, one call-to-action, respect... Noah Kagan Article · 8 min read Cold Email Tips: 6 Steps to Write Great Cold Emails Noah Kagan
Caponi's argument is that admitting what your product is not good at, early and clearly, closes deals faster than trying to... Todd Caponi Book The Transparency Sale Todd Caponi
Steli Efti has run and coached thousands of SaaS demos, and this is the clearest single write-up of what separates a demo that... Close (Steli Efti) Article A Guide to Sales Demos That Sell Close (Steli Efti)
This book is the practical, step-by-step companion to the essay above, built from Dunford working the same structure with over... April Dunford Book Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win April Dunford
Raskin has coached the sales narratives at Gong, Uber, Dropbox and Square, and this essay is the one everyone in B2B sales... Andy Raskin Essay The Greatest Sales Deck I've Ever Seen Andy Raskin

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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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