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. Video How To Get Clients Through LinkedIn Cold Outreach Patrick Dang
  2. This guide's central argument matches our answer exactly: most prospect lists fail at definition, not sourcing, so precision... Clay Tool · Guide + tool How to Build a Targeted Prospect List Clay
  3. LinkedIn is where most B2B founders will actually find the named individuals who match their ICP, and Sales Navigator's filters... LinkedIn Tool LinkedIn Sales Navigator LinkedIn
  4. Video · ~15 min How To Build A Lead List For Cold Email Alex Berman
  5. Steli Efti built Close after running outsourced sales for over 200 venture backed startups, so this guide is written by someone... startupsalesguide.com Article · 20 min read Steli Efti's Ultimate Startup Guide To Outbound Sales Steli Efti
  6. Close is a sales CRM built by working sales leaders, and this piece (reviewed by co-founder Steli Efti) draws the line between... Close Article 17 Best Cold Email Subject Lines for Higher Open Rates Kimberlee Meier
  7. Braun sells cold email coaching for a living and this is his most-shared list, twenty-eight real subject lines with the... LinkedIn (Josh Braun) Thread 28 Cold Email Subject Lines That Get Opened Josh Braun
  8. This one breaks the mechanics down further than the 28-line list, naming distinct patterns like the problem-focused question,... Josh Braun Article 9 Subject Lines That Motivated Prospects to Open Your Cold Email Josh Braun
  9. This is the actual data behind one of the rules founders lean on: Boomerang analyzed over 300,000 emails and found all-caps... Boomerang Article The One Thing You Should Never Do In An Email Subject (Based on Data) Brendan G.
  10. This is the source for the word-count guidance worth knowing before you draft. Boomerang's data, drawn from roughly 40 million... Boomerang Article 7 Tips for Getting More Responses to Your Emails (With Data!) Boomerang
  11. Written for the exact founders who are about to cold email investors, so the advice is calibrated to your actual reader:... Hustle Fund (The Founder Playbook) Article Write Better Subject Lines Hustle Fund (The Founder Playbook)
  12. A large, organized reference bank when you want more raw examples to riff on than the individual essays above give you. It is... Hunter.io Article 89 Effective Cold Email Subject Lines & How to Craft Them Hunter.io
  13. Video 50+ Cold Email Subject Lines To Test (Free Download) Alex Berman
  14. A free, instant way to sanity-check a draft subject line against length, clarity, and tone before you send it, useful as a... CoSchedule Tool Email Subject Line Analyzer CoSchedule
  15. A solo founder's first-hand accounting of what actually moved the needle after hundreds of real sends, useful because it... Indie Hackers Thread 800+ Cold Emails Later: Here's What Actually Moves the Needle Indie Hackers
  16. Hunter Walk is a working VC who has actually funded companies off cold emails, so this comes with real skin in the game rather... Hunter Walk (Homebrew) Essay A Strong Cold Email Always Beats A Weak Warm One Hunter Walk (Homebrew)
  17. This is a tightly reasoned section of a widely respected reference guide on venture capital, written for exactly your... Holloway Article Cold Emails (Raising Venture Capital guide) Holloway
  18. A YC partner walks through the mechanics of actually landing an investor meeting, not just pitching once you're in the room.... Y Combinator (Aaron Harris) Video How to Get Meetings With Investors and Raise Money Y Combinator (Aaron Harris)
  19. This is the canonical essay on the psychology of fundraising, and it explains exactly why desperation kills your odds: 'there... Paul Graham Essay A Fundraising Survival Guide Paul Graham
  20. Hustle Fund invests at pre-seed and reviews over a thousand companies a month, so their founders team has read (and rejected)... Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons) Template Cold Email Tips + Templates Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons)
  21. This shows the real, full text of a cold email that turned into a $250,000 check from Mark Cuban, then a second $250,000 nine... Inc. Article Here's the Email Factmata's Founder Used to Get a $500,000 Investment From Mark Cuban Inc.
  22. This free 83-page book from the founders of AngelList is the original modern text on distilling a startup into a message... Venture Hacks (Naval Ravikant & Babak Nivi) Book Pitching Hacks: How to Pitch Startups to Investors Venture Hacks (Naval Ravikant & Babak Nivi)
  23. Written by the President of TDK Ventures, this is a sitting investor naming exactly what separates a disciplined cold email... TDK Ventures (Nicolas Sauvage) Essay The Cold Email VCs Want TDK Ventures (Nicolas Sauvage)
  24. This piece pulls direct, attributed advice from named investors, including Jason Lemkin, Michael Seibel, and other operating... LeadLoft Article How to Cold Email Investors: 19 Tips From VCs & Angels LeadLoft

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
eChai Partner Brands The partnership →