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 short, plain piece that names the exact trap in this question: a curiosity click reads as demand when it is not. It gives... saasvalidation.tech Article Pre-launch waitlists measure curiosity, not intent saasvalidation.tech In 2 answers
  2. Video · ~35 min Growth for Startups Gustaf Alstromer In 2 answers
  3. When incumbents all compete on the same features for the same buyers, this book shows how to redraw the offer so you are not... W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne Book · ~250 pages Blue Ocean Strategy W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne In 2 answers
  4. Before you have any customer stories, your own founder story is the only pitch you have, and this piece shows you how to use... First Round Review Article · ~15 min read The Three Frameworks You Need to Kick-start Sales Whitney Sales In 2 answers
  5. Video · 50 min Stanley Tang (DoorDash): Scaling the Unscalable Stanley Tang In 2 answers
  6. A short clip of Paul Graham explaining the idea in his own words, useful if you want the core of the essay before committing to... Startup Archive Video · 5 min Paul Graham explains what it means to do things that don't scale Paul Graham In 2 answers
  7. A method for finding exactly where your customers already gather online, the forums, subreddits, and groups where they post... Stacking the Bricks Article · ~12 min read How to Find Your Audience's Online Watering Holes Alex Hillman In 2 answers
  8. When you need to reach the active or influential people in your niche cold, this helps you build a targeted list and find their... Apollo.io Tool Apollo.io Apollo.io In 2 answers
  9. Campbell has pricing data on thousands of companies, and his core message is that willingness to pay is something you can... Intercom (Inside Intercom) Podcast Patrick Campbell on the Art and Science of Pricing Patrick Campbell In 2 answers
  10. A practical guide to running an early willingness to pay conversation and building pricing around real buyer personas. Good... First Round Review Article The Price is Right: Essential Tips for Nailing Your Pricing Strategy First Round Review In 2 answers
  11. An entire newsletter dedicated to reverse engineering how companies like Uber, DoorDash, and Spotify got their first thousand... Ali Abouelatta (First 1000 newsletter) Article · Newsletter archive, 10 min per issue First 1000 Ali Abouelatta In 2 answers
  12. A clear, short explainer on why asking friends (or anyone) what they want produces false positives, and how to interview for... NYU Entrepreneurship Article · 8 min read Stop Asking What They Want: Why Customer Discovery Is About Problems, Not Products Frank Rimalovski In 2 answers
  13. Your short answer says to track outreach like a funnel, and this gives you a free spreadsheet to do it. Log every contact as... Close.com Template · Downloadable templates Sales Pipeline Templates (Excel and Google Sheets) Close.com In 2 answers
  14. A ready made structure for running and logging customer interviews the Mom Test way, so your manual research is captured... Notion Marketplace (GrowthHacking.World) Template · Notion template Problem-Solution Navigator: A Mom Test Based Interview Template GrowthHacking.World In 2 answers
  15. Free templates including the Positioning Canvas and a messaging document you can fill in for your own product. They turn the... aprildunford.com Template · Downloadable April Dunford Positioning Templates April Dunford In 2 answers
  16. Podcast SaaS Startups: Early Stage Sales, Product Demos and Right to Sell with Jen Abel Jen Abel and Amit Somani In 2 answers
  17. When people love it but will not pay, price is often the real blocker, and this piece walks you through pricing conversations... First Round Review Article Pricing Lessons from Working with 30+ Seed and Series A B2B Startups First Round Review In 2 answers
  18. Your short answer says give people a simple way to pay, and for Indian founders this is one of the fastest: create a payment... Razorpay Tool Razorpay Payment Links Razorpay In 2 answers
  19. When you want your old network to open doors rather than just buy, this covers how to ask in a way that respects their time and... Kristina Hu (Hu Knows) Article · ~8 min read How to Ask for a Warm Intro Kristina Hu In 2 answers
  20. Video · ~20 min Solving the Chicken or Egg Problem James Currier In 2 answers
  21. Since supply is usually the side you bootstrap by hand, this is a focused list of 28 concrete ways real marketplaces did it. It... andrewchen.com Article · 15 min read 28 Ways to Grow Supply in a Marketplace Lenny Rachitsky (via Andrew Chen) In 2 answers
  22. This is the famous story of Airbnb flying to New York and photographing listings door to door, the most literal example of... First Round Review Article · 12 min read How Design Thinking Transformed Airbnb from Failing Startup to Billion Dollar Business First Round Review In 2 answers
  23. Video · ~45 min Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (How to Start a Startup, Lecture 4) Adora Cheung In 2 answers
  24. IndiaMART is India's largest B2B marketplace, and its founder talks candidly about aggregating supply first (opening 52 offices... Prime Venture Partners Podcast Podcast · ~45 min Bundling & Unbundling, Blitzscaling & B2B Opportunities with Dinesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO IndiaMART Prime Venture Partners In 2 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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