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. India does not have one launch button, so this is a useful starting point precisely because it shows ten real companies... Medium Article · ~10 min read How These 10 Indian Companies Got Their First 1000 Customers Harkirat Singh In 2 answers
  2. If you do decide a waitlist earns its place, this is a clean, concrete way to run one well without building it yourself: a... LaunchList Tool LaunchList: Viral Pre-Launch Waitlist Software with Referrals LaunchList In 2 answers
  3. This is the short, canonical essay that names the exact trap: people switch into a stiff, impressive-sounding written voice... paulgraham.com Essay Write Like You Talk Paul Graham In 2 answers
  4. This is the clearest argument for why a launch should not be a single spike: if you share the process continuously, every day... Austin Kleon Book · 224 pages Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered Austin Kleon In 2 answers
  5. If you want to fix the follow-up mindset for good, this is the book, and this is the author's own page for it. Blount is blunt... jebblount.com (official) Book · ~320 pages Fanatical Prospecting Jeb Blount In 2 answers
  6. This is a curated run of founder interviews on The SaaS Podcast about landing the very first paying customers, and the... SaaS Club Podcast · Ongoing series, ~45 to 60 min episodes Getting Your First SaaS Customers (Founder Interviews) Omer Khan, The SaaS Podcast In 2 answers
  7. Arvid Kahl bootstrapped and sold a real business, so this is a founder talking tradeoffs, not theory. He argues for finding an... Indie Hackers Podcast · About 60 to 70 minutes Indie Hackers Podcast #212: Arvid Kahl on Building an Audience Before a Product Courtland Allen (host), Arvid Kahl (guest) In 2 answers
  8. Andrew Chen ran growth at Uber and a16z, and his core idea here, the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs, is exactly why a channel that... andrewchen.substack.com Article Every Marketing Channel Sucks Right Now Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  9. If you want word of mouth to be intentional, start with why people share at all. Berger's research pins it down to six... Jonah Berger (Wharton) Book · Book, about 256 pages Contagious: Why Things Catch On Jonah Berger In 2 answers
  10. The whole game with referrals is timing: ask at the moment someone has just felt the value, not at signup or on a random login.... ReferralCandy Article · Article, about 10 minute read Best Time to Ask for a Referral: Mapping It to the Customer Journey Raul Galera In 2 answers
  11. Most WhatsApp pieces are pitches from tool vendors. This one is closer to an honest operator's map: it lays out the five flows... ProductGrowth.in Article · ~15 min read WhatsApp Commerce for D2C Brands: The Complete India Playbook ProductGrowth.in In 2 answers
  12. Ross and Lemkin are the people who wrote the sales-growth playbook most SaaS teams actually copy, so this is a solid grounding... Wiley Book · Book, roughly 350 pages From Impossible to Inevitable: How SaaS and Other Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin In 2 answers
  13. Most founders pick an ad budget by copying a percentage they read somewhere, which is exactly backwards. Rollins gives you a... Practical Marketing Article How Much Marketing Budget Does A Startup Need? Brandon Rollins In 2 answers
  14. Product Hunt reaches a global, product-curious crowd, so if your buyer is in India this episode grounds the decision in what... Practical Founders Podcast Podcast · Podcast episode, roughly 45 to 60 minutes Bootstrapped B2B SaaS in India Serving IT Services Companies, with Sandeep Kumar Greg Head In 2 answers
  15. Video How to Use PostHog: Step-by-Step Guide for Product Analytics & Session Replay PostHog In 2 answers
  16. This is the clearest walk-through of the most famous activation metric ever, Facebook's "7 friends in 10 days", and how it was... Mode Article Facebook's "Aha" Moment Was Simpler Than You Think Benn Stancil In 2 answers
  17. This is the clearest statement of the argument you need before you touch either lever: retention is not one metric among many,... OpenView Essay Retention Is the King of Growth (Brian Balfour, 500 Startups talk) Brian Balfour In 2 answers
  18. This is the essay that reframes the whole question. Instead of asking whether your DAU/MAU is high enough, it tells you to look... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay The Power User Curve: The Best Way to Understand Your Most Engaged Users Li Jin and Andrew Chen In 2 answers
  19. Before you run anything, put your real numbers into this and see how many conversions per variant you would actually need. It... evanmiller.org Tool Sample Size Calculator (Evan's Awesome A/B Tools) Evan Miller In 2 answers
  20. Torres takes the next step after you accept you cannot reach significance: figure out what you are actually trying to learn,... Product Talk Article What to Do When You Don't Have Enough Traffic to A/B Test Teresa Torres In 2 answers
  21. This is the most direct piece we found on the founder-led versus formal-function question, and it argues hard that most early... First Round Review Article · About a 20 minute read You're Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead Matt Lerner In 2 answers
  22. This is the cleanest explanation of the one idea that decides your first channel: Google captures demand that already exists,... Big Flare Article · About a 12 minute read Meta Ads vs Google Ads for Ecommerce: The Demand Generation vs Demand Capture Framework Daryl Mander In 2 answers
  23. Video · About 30 minutes How to Get Users and Grow Gustaf Alstromer In 2 answers
  24. Arvid Kahl built and sold a SaaS, then grew a real audience of tens of thousands almost entirely online, from outside any... Apple Podcasts Podcast · Ongoing series, most episodes 20 to 40 minutes The Bootstrapped Founder Arvid Kahl In 2 answers

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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