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. This is the canonical source for the claim that the customers you already have are far cheaper to keep than the ones a shiny... Harvard Business Review Article The Value of Keeping the Right Customers Amy Gallo In 2 answers
  2. Video · 10 min Build product. Talk to users. Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  3. A community where founders openly share the problems they are solving, what is working, and what is not. Reading real people... Indie Hackers Tool · Browse Indie Hackers Indie Hackers In 2 answers
  4. Savoia, a former Google innovation lead, argues most ideas fail because they were never 'the right it', and he gives you cheap... Alberto Savoia Book · 256 pages The Right It Alberto Savoia In 2 answers
  5. This goes underneath Delta 4 into why Indians pay for some things and not others: value versus price, trust, and the real value... Farnam Street, The Knowledge Project Podcast · ~2 hr Kunal Shah: Core Human Motivations (The Knowledge Project) Shane Parrish and Kunal Shah In 2 answers
  6. The most cited annual snapshot of the Indian startup and consumer economy, with hard numbers on income distribution, the thin... Blume Ventures Article · Long report Indus Valley Annual Report 2024 Sajith Pai, Anurag Pagaria, Kunal Bajaj In 2 answers
  7. Maurya names the exact failure in this question: founders ask what problems their solution can solve instead of what problems... Love the Problem (Medium) Article · ~8 min read The Problem With Problems Ash Maurya In 2 answers
  8. YC founders talk candidly about disagreements that felt existential and how they worked through them. It normalizes that a hard... Y Combinator Library Video · ~30 min How To Navigate Co-Founder Disputes Y Combinator In 2 answers
  9. The opportunity is often a capability that already works in a raw model but nobody has wrapped into a specific job yet. This... Andreessen Horowitz Article · 12 min read The AI Future Is Already Here, It's Just Not Productized Yet Angela Strange In 2 answers
  10. This explains the exact cognitive trap behind insider bias: once you know a domain deeply you cannot un-see it, so you assume... CXL Article · ~12 min read The Curse of Knowledge: How Expertise Can Hurt Your Communication CXL In 2 answers
  11. A tarpit idea is one that looks easy and gets praise from everyone, yet has quietly killed hundreds of founders who tried it.... Y Combinator Library Video · ~20 min Tarpit Ideas: The Sequel Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel In 2 answers
  12. Podcast · ~90 min Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: tar pit ideas and pivoting Dalton Caldwell In 2 answers
  13. A finance-grade reference for the actual formulas, with a calculator so you can sanity-check your TAM, SAM, and SOM arithmetic.... Wall Street Prep Tool Market Sizing: Formula and Calculator Wall Street Prep In 2 answers
  14. Sanjay Swamy built mobile payments in India in 2006, roughly two generations before Aadhaar, smartphones, and UPI made them... Prime Venture Partners Podcast · 45 min Why mChek Failed Before UPI Took Over India (Sanjay Swamy on Building Too Early) Prime Venture Partners In 2 answers
  15. The same argument as the essay, but spoken, if you would rather watch than read. Dixon walks through real markets that looked... Andreessen Horowitz Video · 4 min Why the Next Big Thing Will Look Like a Toy Chris Dixon In 2 answers
  16. This episode focuses specifically on how the consuming class is shifting and what that does to sizing over time. It helps you... Ideas of India, Mercatus Center Podcast · 1 hr 20 min Sajith Pai Unpacks the 2024 Indus Valley Report and the Changing Indian Consumer Shruti Rajagopalan with Sajith Pai In 2 answers
  17. Dunford reframes competitors as competitive alternatives, starting with the status quo of doing nothing, which is the real... April Dunford (aprildunford.com) Article · 12 min read Positioning and Competition April Dunford In 2 answers
  18. If you truly have no category, this is the book on deliberately designing one, which reframes sizing as creating demand rather... playbigger.com Book · Book Play Bigger Al Ramadan, Dave Peterson, Christopher Lochhead, Kevin Maney In 2 answers
  19. This is the most direct answer to your question from an investor who reads these slides for a living. It walks through why a... Underscore VC (Richard Dulude) Article · 12 min read How to Create a Compelling Market Size Slide (With Examples) Richard Dulude In 2 answers
  20. A short India-focused primer on what a first pitch should cover, including where market size fits and how it shapes how much... Prime Venture Partners Article · 6 min read How to Pitch to a VC Prime Venture Partners In 2 answers
  21. This is the single closest essay to your question. Evans argues that saying "that looks like a toy" or "people always said... Benedict Evans Essay · 12 min read Not even wrong: ways to predict technology Benedict Evans In 2 answers
  22. Neumann applies Perez's framework to software to ask where we actually are in the cycle and what that means for which markets... Reaction Wheel Essay · 30 min read The Deployment Age Jerry Neumann In 2 answers
  23. This is the cleanest walkthrough of building a market number from the ground up: count the real end users who fit your profile,... Disciplined Entrepreneurship (Bill Aulet, MIT) Article Calculate the TAM for Your Beachhead Market Bill Aulet In 2 answers
  24. A clear summary of the Golder and Tellis research showing that pioneers failed far more often than fast followers who entered... ProductPlan Article The Myth of First-Mover Advantage ProductPlan 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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