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. Fried and Hansson argue for asking customers a small number of open ended questions rather than running formal surveys, and... REWORK, 37signals Podcast · 25 min Question Your Customers Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
  2. Doshi tells a visual, concrete story about a team that built for a problem customers said they had, but that was never actually... X (Twitter) Thread · 5 min read Destined to Fail: A B2B Product Management Story Shreyas Doshi
  3. April Dunford wrote the modern playbook on positioning, and this exercise is the fastest way to see how target customer... aprildunford.com Essay · 10 min read A Product Positioning Exercise April Dunford
  4. Kyle Poyar writes for people running go to market at growth stage B2B companies, so this piece is useful once your ICP needs to... Growth Unhinged Essay · 12 min read ICP marketing done right Kyle Poyar
  5. This is a clean, no nonsense definition written for enterprise founders, distinguishing ICP (the company), buyer (who decides),... Unusual Ventures Field Guide Article · 8 min read What is an ideal customer profile? Unusual Ventures Field Guide
  6. Lincoln Murphy is one of the people credited with popularizing the term ideal customer profile in SaaS, and this framework goes... Sixteen Ventures Article · 25 min read Ideal Customer Profile Framework Lincoln Murphy
  7. The full book behind the Bullseye essay above, with nineteen traction channels laid out and worked examples of testing them... Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares Book · ~200 pages Traction: A Startup Guide to Getting Customers Gabriel Weinberg, Justin Mares
  8. Video · ~2 min Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shares the Paul Graham advice that helped him find product/market fit Brian Chesky
  9. Krish Subramanian describes trying to serve all customers early on, losing the specific insight Chargebee was actually built... YourStory Article · ~10 min read How Chargebee stayed focused before expanding customer segments YourStory
  10. The foundational marketing text on owning a specific position in a specific customer's mind rather than trying to be relevant... Al Ries and Jack Trout Book · ~200 pages Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind Al Ries, Jack Trout
  11. Revella more or less codified the term "buyer persona" for B2B, and this free manifesto is her own definition, not someone... Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute Essay The Buyer Persona Manifesto Adele Revella, Buyer Persona Institute
  12. A clean, direct side by side of the two terms our question is about, written for people who actually have to use both in a... Total Product Marketing Article ICP vs. Buyer Persona: What's the Difference? Total Product Marketing
  13. Close built its whole early sales motion around a narrow ICP, and this guide gives you the actual firmographic fields (company... Close Article How to Create an Ideal Customer Profile for B2B Leads (ICP Guide) Close
  14. Three YC Group Partners argue through the tradeoffs of who counts as an ideal customer, using the specific case of startups... Y Combinator Startup Library Video Inside the Group Partner Lounge: The ideal customer Y Combinator Startup Library
  15. This episode treats ICP as company strategy, not a marketing artifact, and it's specific about how the exercise changes as you... SaaStr Podcast SaaStr Podcast 457: Building Your Ideal Customer Profile: Target Your Product, Sales and Marketing Effectively SaaStr
  16. Revella explains her five-question framework for what actually needs to be in a persona, priority, success factors, barriers,... Pragmatic Institute (Adele Revella) Podcast The Five Rings of Buying Insight Pragmatic Institute (Adele Revella)
  17. Graham lays out why the users who need you most, not the ones who are easiest to please, are the ones worth building for. It... Paul Graham Essay What I've Learned from Users Paul Graham
  18. Blank argues that market definition, not just customer interviews, is the step founders skip, and that getting it wrong is what... Steve Blank Essay How to Find a Market? Use Jobs to be Done as the Front End of Customer Discovery Steve Blank
  19. A direct argument for why the customer is not always right for you, with a framework for deciding which accounts are quietly... Harvard Business Review Article It's Time to Fire Some of Your Customers Anthony K. Tjan
  20. Lays out concrete criteria for recognizing a customer relationship that will not get better, so you are not relying on gut feel... Harvard Business Review Article When and Why to Part Ways with a Customer Lior Arussy
  21. Traynor breaks down knowing your customer into two concrete questions, who they are and how they decide, instead of a vague... Intercom Article Know Your Customers and How They Decide Des Traynor
  22. This lays out the bullseye idea explicitly: most durable products start at the center of a tight, specific market and expand... Reforge Article · 15 min read The 4 Growth Frameworks You Need to Build a $100M Product Reforge
  23. Written from the perspective of bootstrapped founders who do not have the luxury of burning cash to reach a broad market, this... Indie Hackers Article · 10 min read How to Identify a Micro-Niche That's Perfect for SaaS Founders Indie Hackers
  24. The clearest definition of what a persona actually is and is not, from the field that invented the term. It draws the line... Nielsen Norman Group Article · ~10 min read Personas Make Users Memorable Nielsen Norman Group

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 →