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. Nick Swinmurn tested whether people would actually buy shoes online by photographing shoes he did not own and buying them at... Alex Ponomarev Article · 8 min read How Zappos Built a Product By Faking It Alex Ponomarev
  2. The book's central case study of an entrepreneur with six beta commitments and zero dollars spent on development is a direct... Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom Book · ~230 pages Nail It Then Scale It Nathan Furr, Paul Ahlstrom
  3. Young's method pushes you past what people say they do and toward the reasoning underneath it, the guiding thoughts and... Rosenfeld Media Book Mental Models: Aligning Design Strategy with Human Behavior Indi Young
  4. This article names the specific ways a survey misleads you: people rush through it, answer the way that feels acceptable rather... Harvard Business Review Article Customer Surveys Are No Substitute for Actually Talking to Customers Graham Kenny
  5. The switch interview technique here is the deepest version of the live conversation approach: instead of asking what someone... jobstobedone.org Tool Jobs-to-be-Done: The Switch Interview Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek
  6. Cohen has run this exact process since before he sold his first company, and he is unusually candid about the mechanics: write... A Smart Bear Essay The Iterative-Hypothesis Customer Development Method Jason Cohen
  7. Nielsen Norman Group has run user research for decades, and this short video lays out plainly which questions each method... Nielsen Norman Group Video Comparing Qualitative and Quantitative UX Research Nielsen Norman Group
  8. Podcast Principles of Building Great Products with Julie Zhuo Amit Somani and Julie Zhuo
  9. A checklist you can run your actual call script against before you place the calls. It catches the specific phrasing habits,... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~8 min read 6 Mistakes When Crafting Interview Questions Maria Rosala
  10. Cohen goes straight at the founder self-deception in the question: a room full of enthusiastic yeses is not validation unless... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay · ~15 min read Yes, but who said they would actually buy the damn thing? Jason Cohen
  11. This essay is the clearest explanation of why stated preference and revealed preference diverge, with a concrete example of... UX Tigers Essay · ~10 min read Watch What Users Do, Don't Listen to What They Say Jakob Nielsen
  12. Meyer's framework classifies India as a high-context culture, where meaning is layered and read between the lines rather than... Erin Meyer Book · ~280 pages The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business Erin Meyer
  13. If you are tempted to dump 20 transcripts into an AI tool and ask for the pattern, read this first. It explains why AI defaults... Lenny's Newsletter Article How to Do AI Analysis You Can Actually Trust Caitlin Sullivan
  14. This walks through exactly the analysis step your question is stuck on, how to go from a stack of interview notes to a small... Nielsen Norman Group Video Thematic Analysis of Qualitative User Research Data Maria Rosala
  15. Affinity diagramming is the literal, hands on version of sorting your transcripts by who the person is and how badly they hurt:... Nielsen Norman Group Article Affinity Diagramming: Collaboratively Sort UX Findings and Design Ideas Rachel Krause and Kara Pernice
  16. Paras Chopra describes losing seven to eight months building Wingify's first version without talking to users at all, then the... The Neon Show Podcast How To Build A Successful Startup In India, ft. Paras Chopra (sold Wingify for 200 million dollars) Paras Chopra
  17. Chesky describes flying across the country to personally sit in hosts' living rooms because nothing in a survey told them why... Y Combinator Startup Library Video · ~40 min Brian Chesky, Co-Founder and CEO of Airbnb Brian Chesky
  18. This is the original milkshake essay: researchers sat in a parking lot and watched who bought milkshakes and when, instead of... Harvard Business Review Essay · ~20 min read Marketing Malpractice: The Cause and the Cure Clayton Christensen, Scott Cook, Taddy Hall
  19. Drew Houston did not build Dropbox before testing demand, he filmed a video showing how it would work and posted it to Hacker... Shortform Article · ~10 min read The Original Dropbox MVP Explainer Video Shortform
  20. Before building any shoe inventory or logistics, Nick Swinmurn photographed shoes from local stores, posted them online, and... What Is MVP Article · ~10 min read Zappos MVP Case Study: How a Wizard of Oz Test Built a Billion Dollar Shoe Empire What Is MVP
  21. A practical walkthrough of building only the button or menu item for a feature that does not exist yet, then measuring who... Amplitude Article · ~10 min read What Is Fake Door Testing: Methods and Best Practices Amplitude
  22. This is a reference document more than a read: thirty concrete before and after examples of leading questions rewritten into... CXL Article · 15 minute read Leading Questions: Definition, Types and 30 Examples CXL
  23. This walks through Jobs to Be Done interviewing, which is built entirely around reconstructing a real past decision rather than... CXL Article · 18 minute read Customer Interviews: How to Use the Jobs-to-Be-Done Framework CXL
  24. This is the academic name and definition for exactly the failure mode in the question: people systematically overstate what... Catalog of Bias Article · 3 minute read Hypothetical bias Catalog of Bias

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 →