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. A VC and HBS lecturer takes on the belief that you must be a domain insider to win, and he is honest about both sides: the... Jeff Bussgang (Flybridge, Harvard Business School) Essay · ~10 min read The Outsiders: Defying the Myth of Founder-Market Fit Jeff Bussgang In 4 answers
  2. A concrete, copyable Google Sheet (no paywall, no credit card) that builds your number bottoms-up from customer segments and... Visible.vc Template · ~15 min to fill in Total Addressable Market Template (free Google Sheet) Mike Preuss In 4 answers
  3. If you would rather hear the thinking than read it, this is Rahul Vohra on Lenny's Podcast talking through the same... Lenny's Podcast Podcast Superhuman's secret to success: ignoring most customer feedback, manually onboarding every user, and positioning around one attribute | Rahul Vohra Lenny Rachitsky In 4 answers
  4. Aulet turns beachhead selection into an explicit, sequenced process (market segmentation, then picking one beachhead, then... Wiley Book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup Bill Aulet In 4 answers
  5. Video · ~5 min Clay Christensen: The Jobs to be Done Theory (the milkshake example) Clayton Christensen (HubSpot Marketing) In 4 answers
  6. Ash Maurya, author of Running Lean, argues you can always find how a customer solves a job today, and that existing workaround... LEANFoundry Article · About a 10 minute read Find Better Problems Worth Solving with the Customer Forces Canvas Ash Maurya In 4 answers
  7. This is the short, practical manual for actually doing a test yourself, no training required. Krug walks you through running a... Steve Krug (New Riders) Book · About 168 pages Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems Steve Krug In 4 answers
  8. This is the canonical framing for exactly your question: not all messy code is the same. Fowler splits debt on two axes,... martinfowler.com Essay · About a 5 minute read Technical Debt Quadrant Martin Fowler In 4 answers
  9. Video · About 25 minutes Building Product Michael Seibel In 4 answers
  10. Most registrars hook you with a cheap first year and quietly triple the renewal, which is exactly the trap a bootstrapped... Cloudflare Tool Cloudflare Registrar Cloudflare In 4 answers
  11. Shapiro gives you a concrete framework you can apply the same afternoon: write a header that is fully descriptive of what you... julian.com Article · Long read, about 30 minutes Startup Handbook: Landing Page Copywriting Julian Shapiro In 4 answers
  12. This is the standard free tool for measuring how your page actually performs, and it defaults to a mobile view, which is... Google (web.dev) Tool · A test runs in under a minute per URL PageSpeed Insights Google In 4 answers
  13. This is Google's own standard for what earns rankings, written by the team that runs the ranking systems, so it settles the... Google Search Central Article Creating Helpful, Reliable, People-First Content Google Search Central In 4 answers
  14. Video · about 30 minutes How to Sell Tyler Bosmeny In 4 answers
  15. Steve Blank is the person who most clearly made the case against planning everything and then unveiling it in one big moment.... steveblank.com Essay · 5 min read No Business Plan Survives First Contact With Customers. 2 Minutes to See Why Steve Blank In 4 answers
  16. This is the rare cold email piece written by someone who has actually sent thousands of them (Steli Efti built Close, a sales... Close Article 15 Best Cold Email Templates That Actually Get Replies (Proven Examples) Steli Efti In 4 answers
  17. Before any of your outreach copy matters, you need the right person's actual email, and Hunter is the most widely used,... Hunter.io Tool Hunter (Email Finder and Verifier) Hunter In 4 answers
  18. This is the cleanest plain-language separation of the two margins we found, and it walks through both formulas with actual... Shopify Article · About 8 minute read Contribution Margin vs. Gross Margin: What's the Difference? Shopify In 4 answers
  19. This is the canonical a16z reference that defines the marketplace vocabulary you actually need before you build a model: GMV vs... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay 13 Metrics Every Marketplace Company Should Track Jeff Jordan, Li Jin, D'Arcy Coolican, Andrew Chen (a16z) In 4 answers
  20. Once you accept that the spreadsheet lied about your cash, this template makes the timing gap concrete: you enter your real... The Startup Project Tool · Downloadable spreadsheet, 15 to 30 minutes to fill in Startup Runway Calculator Template (Excel and Google Sheets) The Startup Project In 4 answers
  21. This is the source document for the entire SAFE debate, written by YC's CFO who papered thousands of these. It walks the actual... Y Combinator Article · 15 min read Understanding SAFEs and Priced Equity Rounds Kirsty Nathoo In 4 answers
  22. Once you accept you are using CCPS, this is the operator's manual for what that instrument actually carries: 1x... Treelife Article · 18 min read CCPS SAFE Notes in India: Structure, Investor Rights, and Compliance Treelife In 4 answers
  23. This is the cleanest statement of the per-round rule of thumb backed by Carta's data across 1,200+ rounds: roughly 20 percent... SaaStr Article · 6 min read Carta: The Actual, Real Dilution from Series A, B, C and D Rounds Jason Lemkin In 4 answers
  24. A slide-by-slide walk through Airbnb's actual 2009 seed deck (the one that raised $600K), covering all 14 slides from cover to... Slidebean Article · 15 min read Airbnb Pitch Deck: Teardown and Redesign Caya (Slidebean) In 4 answers

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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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