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. BIS's own list of the products the Central Government has brought under Quality Control Orders, which must carry the Standard... bis.gov.in Article · Reference list Products under compulsory certification (Bureau of Indian Standards) Bureau of Indian Standards
  2. MoRTH's own portal for the National Permit for goods carriages, where a transporter pays the National Permit authorisation fee... vahan.parivahan.gov.in Tool · Portal Online National Permit (Vahan, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways) Ministry of Road Transport and Highways
  3. Sajith Pai's India1/India2/India3 framework and the Indus Valley report are the sharpest public analysis of who in India... sajithpai.com Article · essays + annual report Sajith Pai on the Indus Valley Report & the Indian market (India1/2/3) Sajith Pai (Blume Ventures)
  4. An AI agent that builds and deploys full-stack apps with hosting, database, and auth built in, bridging no-code speed and real,... replit.com Tool · platform Replit, Build Apps with AI Replit
  5. A real Indian maker story: Bengaluru's Karthik Sridharan scaled Flexiple to seven figures on no-code. Proof that a... Makerpad (Zapier) Article · ~12 min read How a Former Salesman Co-Founded a Seven-Figure Business on Bubble Karthik Sridharan (Flexiple) via Makerpad
  6. Video · ~10 min How to Find a Technical Cofounder Michael Seibel (YC)
  7. A free, well-maintained learning hub from the industry-standard design tool, covering the fundamentals a founder needs to... figma.com Course · self-paced Figma, Learn Design Figma
  8. India's largest volunteer-driven product community (Bengaluru-founded, 25k+ members) with a practitioner blog on strategy,... theproductfolks.com Article · ~10 min read + community The Product Folks, India's Product Community The Product Folks
  9. Shows exactly how top startups turned early cold/warm outreach into paying customers, with real message-level detail. Grounds... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~15 min read How to win your first 10 customers via direct outreach Lenny Rachitsky
  10. Video Complete Bubble.io Course for Beginners: Build an App in 2025 YouTube
  11. A long conversation with the founder of TSMC, one of the most consequential companies most people have never studied. It is a... Acquired Podcast · ~1 hr 30 min TSMC Founder Morris Chang (Acquired) Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
  12. When you are entering an industry you have never worked in, the real risk is being fooled by a surface understanding and... Scott H. Young Book · ~304 pages Ultralearning: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career Scott H. Young
  13. When you start with no credibility in a market, customer interviews are how you borrow the insiders' knowledge, and doing them... Lean Startup Circle (Medium) Article · ~10 min read 16 Tips for Great Customer Development Interviews in B2B Etienne Garbugli
  14. When two ideas are stuck in a loop of gut feel versus gut feel, the fastest way out is to agree on what actually matters and... Savio Template · ~15 min read + free Google Sheet The Weighted Scoring Model: Guide, Template, and Calculator Kareem Mayan
  15. This is a16z's clearest map of where AI genuinely opens new application-layer companies versus where it just produces thin... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · ~20 min read Good News: AI Will Eat Application Software Alex Immerman and Santiago Rodriguez
  16. This short piece names the exact bias that trips up experts: once you know something deeply, you literally cannot imagine not... Harvard Business Review Essay · ~10 min read The Curse of Knowledge Chip Heath and Dan Heath
  17. The answer only works if you actually keep the running idea log, and this is a simple, free place to keep it. Obsidian stores... Obsidian Tool Obsidian Obsidian
  18. Video · ~15 min How to Validate Your Business Idea Fast (Million Dollar Weekend) Noah Kagan
  19. A concrete B2B founder story rather than theory, and one that happens to come from an India-built company (Paperflite,... The SaaS Podcast Podcast · ~55 min How They Closed 500 SaaS Customers With No Outbound Sales Omer Khan
  20. Video · ~50 min Doing Things That Don't Scale, PR, How to Get Started (How to Start a Startup, Lecture 8) Stanley Tang, Walker Williams, Justin Kan
  21. Podcast · ~45 min Tech Billionaire Sridhar Vembu On Building Zoho, Village Economy, Silicon Valley & AI Sridhar Vembu (Josh Talks)
  22. A concrete method for confirming the pain is real before you fall for your own fix, framed as the painkiller versus vitamin... Foundr Article · ~15 min read Painkillers vs. Vitamins: How to Find Customer Pain Points That Drive Sales Amy Rigby
  23. Waitlists and fake door landing pages are prone to false positives, and this essay names exactly how: broad, outcome-selling... Future Foundry Essay · ~10 min read Why everyone gets fake door tests wrong Jacob Dutton
  24. This piece takes the exact worry you have, that Indians love a free product but won't pay, and pulls it apart with founders who... Elevation Capital Article · ~8 min read Monetization Strategies That Work: Insights from Consumer Tech Founders Team Elevation

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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