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. Christensen tells the milkshake story himself: McDonald's asked customers directly how to improve the milkshake and got useless... HBR IdeaCast Podcast · about 35 minutes The Jobs to Be Done Theory of Innovation Clayton Christensen
  2. A short, practical rewrite guide showing three specific question types to swap in for what do you want, each anchored to... Medium Essay · 5 minute read Never Ask What They Want: 3 Better Questions to Ask in User Interviews Chuck Liu
  3. Moesta invented the 'switch interview' technique and explains here how to reconstruct the exact moment a customer decided to... The SaaS Podcast Podcast · ~50 min 10 Customer Interviews That Reveal Why People Really Buy Omer Khan, Bob Moesta
  4. Hearing The Mom Test's author talk through his own framework out loud fills in gaps the book leaves implicit, especially around... The SaaS Podcast Podcast · ~40 min Customer Acquisition Startup Mistakes That Kill Your Idea Omer Khan, Rob Fitzpatrick
  5. Garbugli, a three-time B2B founder, lays out the actual questions to ask about business drivers, pain intensity, and who owns... Lean Startup Digest (Medium) Essay · 10 min read B2B Customer Discovery Interview Questions: A Master List Etienne Garbugli
  6. If you're selling to businesses rather than consumers, this book adapts customer development to the messier reality of... leanb2bbook.com Book · ~280 pages Lean B2B: Build Products Businesses Want Etienne Garbugli
  7. Recruiting is often the actual hard part of this problem, not the conversation itself. This gives you the tactics NN/g uses... Nielsen Norman Group Article · 20 min read How to Recruit Participants for Usability Studies Nielsen Norman Group
  8. A short, practical answer to the recruitment problem this question is really asking about: where do I even find these people.... Lean Startup Co. Article · 8 min read We Can't Find Customers to Interview. Now What? Lean Startup Co.
  9. One of India's better-known early-stage VCs interviews the author of Jobs to Be Done on why people 'hire' a product, which... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~40 min Stephen Wunker, MD New Markets Advisors, on Building Solutions That Help Your Customers Get Things Done Shripati Acharya, Stephen Wunker
  10. Lemkin lays out a specific, staged interview count for B2B SaaS founders: the first five to map the space, the next five to... SaaStr Article · ~10 min read Planning to Do a SaaS Startup? Don't Forget the 20 Interview Rule Jason Lemkin
  11. Portigal has run professional research interviews for over 25 years, and this book is the deeper craft manual once you have the... portigal.com Book Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights Steve Portigal
  12. Hansen, a bootstrapped SaaS founder herself, talks through the practical mechanics of running interviews as one more task in an... Startups For The Rest Of Us Podcast Mastering Customer Interviews with Michele Hansen Rob Walling with Michele Hansen
  13. This is a real thread of solo and small team founders admitting the exact fear in your question, and working through it... Indie Hackers Thread I'm afraid to talk to customers/prospects, and it's holding me back Indie Hackers
  14. A free AI notetaker that records, transcribes, and summarizes your calls so you are not scrambling to write notes while also... Fathom Tool Fathom Fathom
  15. A ready made, Mom Test style script you can use as is instead of writing your own from scratch, which removes the improvising... Ideaproof Template Customer Interview Script Template Ideaproof
  16. Blank's own blog distills the argument from his book into a short, free read: most startups don't fail on execution, they fail... steveblank.com Essay The Customer Development Manifesto: Reasons for the Revolution Steve Blank
  17. A pre-seed fund's practical checklist for what real validation looks like before you write code, insisting on quantified... Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons) Article How to Validate Your Startup With Customers Before Building Hustle Fund (Hustle Commons)
  18. A free one page canvas built specifically to map what someone was doing before your product, their old solution or workaround,... LeanStack Template The Customer Forces Canvas (Updated) Ash Maurya
  19. A long comment thread of founders and operators arguing through the vitamin versus painkiller framing with their own real... Hacker News Thread Vitamin vs painkiller discussion thread Hacker News
  20. Built around the well known CB Insights statistic, this piece is refreshingly concrete about what evidence to look for, an... The VC Lens Essay 42% of Startups Fail Due to No Real Market Need, Here's How to Solve That Sayanee Bhowmik
  21. A roundup of concrete advice from Indian investors and mentors, and the standout point for this question is direct: founders... YourStory Article Idea Validation: 20 Startup Tips From the TiE Bangalore Mentor Clinic YourStory
  22. Traynor's rule that you should never ask for feedback you are not prepared to act on is exactly the discipline the short answer... Intercom Blog Essay · 8 min read 3 rules for customer feedback Des Traynor
  23. This is the companion piece that explains why the context around a piece of feedback (who said it, when, and in what mood)... Intercom Blog Article · 7 min read The when and where of product feedback Des Traynor
  24. The Clozd founders explain exactly how to run a churn interview well: who should conduct it, why a neutral third party gets... CHURN.FM Podcast · 35 min Qualitative churn analysis Andrew Peterson and Spencer Dent

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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