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 working seed investor answers plainly whether you can build a huge company away from Silicon Valley, and where the real... elizabethyin.com Article Can you build a unicorn business outside the Silicon Valley? Elizabeth Yin In 2 answers
  2. A ready to use version of the 40 percent very disappointed survey, so you can measure real attachment instead of guessing from... LearningLoop Template · quick setup Sean Ellis Product-Market Fit Survey Sean Ellis (framework) In 2 answers
  3. If ONDC is your opening, this is the primary source for how the network actually works and how to join it, including... ONDC Tool ONDC (official network) ONDC In 2 answers
  4. A YC founder explains how his team cut their MVP build time from three months to hours once they committed to shipping the... Y Combinator Blog Article The Art of Shipping Early and Often David Mack In 2 answers
  5. This is the internal memo Butterfield sent his team two weeks before Slack's launch, written from inside the wreckage of... Medium Essay We Don't Sell Saddles Here Stewart Butterfield In 2 answers
  6. The official rules for posting to Hacker News's Show HN section, worth reading before you try this channel again: it tells you... Hacker News Tool Show HN Guidelines Y Combinator In 2 answers
  7. This is Product Hunt's own pre-launch checklist, covering exactly the assets you need lined up weeks ahead: gallery images,... Product Hunt Article Preparing for launch Product Hunt In 2 answers
  8. This one short official answer kills the single most common Product Hunt myth: that you should mobilize everyone you know to... Product Hunt Help Center Article Can I ask my community/friends/family to upvote a product? Product Hunt Help Center In 2 answers
  9. Written by the founder of ConvertKit, this book is squarely about the sequence your short answer describes: build an audience... nathanbarry.com Book · Book Authority: Become an Expert, Build a Following, and Gain Financial Independence Nathan Barry In 2 answers
  10. Godin's core claim is that marketing is the generous act of telling a true story to people who want to hear it, not... Seth Godin Book · ~256 pages This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See Seth Godin In 2 answers
  11. Video · 12 min Superhuman's waitlist wasn't about FOMO Rahul Vohra In 2 answers
  12. If you have decided a waitlist genuinely fits your situation, this is a practical, current playbook for running one well,... a16z speedrun Article · 10 min read The Growth Meta: How to Build a Waitlist a16z speedrun In 2 answers
  13. Slack iterated privately with a small team for months, using what they learned to earn a preview release that then turned into... First Round Review Article · 20 min read From 0 to $1B: Slack's Founder Shares Their Epic Launch Strategy First Round Review In 2 answers
  14. Written specifically for solo and small-team founders without a marketing budget or audience, this book argues for validating a... Amazon Book Start Small, Stay Small: A Developer's Guide to Launching a Startup Rob Walling In 2 answers
  15. This breaks founder sales into seven distinct conversation types, from qualifying to first contact to asking for a referral, so... SaaStock Article · ~7 min read The 7 Essential Customer Conversations According to Steli Efti Steli Efti In 2 answers
  16. Kracov, a first-time founder at Dock, wrote this after six months of running his own sales calls, and it's refreshingly honest... kracov.co Essay · ~10 min read How I've approached founder-led sales Alex Kracov In 2 answers
  17. MEDDIC gives you a checklist for the 'qualify hard' part of our answer: metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision... MEDDICC Article · ~15 min read MEDDIC Sales Methodology and Process MEDDICC In 2 answers
  18. This is narrower than the cadence advice elsewhere on this list: it is specifically about what makes the follow-up email itself... Gong Article · 8 min read Scientific Tips for Writing the Perfect Follow-Up Sales Email Gong In 2 answers
  19. A direct answer to the exact question in the title: yes, charge for pilots, and here's roughly how much. Jason Lemkin argues... SaaStr Article Dear SaaStr: Should We Charge for Pilots and How Much? Jason Lemkin In 2 answers
  20. Built by an Indian company and free for up to three users, this is the CRM a lot of early Indian B2B founders reach for because... Zoho Tool Zoho CRM Free Edition Zoho In 2 answers
  21. A Hustle Fund investor who reads hundreds of cold emails walks through, line by line, what makes her actually reply versus... Elizabeth Yin Essay · 5 min read How to write a cold-email Elizabeth Yin In 2 answers
  22. Dunford, who wrote the book on product positioning, breaks down how to build a pitch around the buyer's specific situation... Lenny's Newsletter Article How to build a killer sales pitch April Dunford In 2 answers
  23. Written specifically to answer this question, pulling together response-rate curves across follow-up counts so you can see... Instantly Article How Many Times Should You Really Follow Up with a Prospect? Instantly In 2 answers
  24. This breaks down how early sales teams actually build and work a target account list, including how to find contact information... First Round Review Article · 12 min read Designing Your Sales Stack so that Customers Come to You Max Altschuler and Jorge Soto 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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