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 essay gives you a clean, three-part test for a timing bet: is the enabling technology actually ready, has customer... Wing Venture Capital Essay · ~10 min read Startups and Timing: On the "Why Now" for New Businesses Tanay Jaipuria
  2. Video · ~30 min Enterprise Sales | Startup School Pete Koomen
  3. Graham names the three things that actually convince investors: formidable founders, a promising market, and (usually) evidence... Paul Graham Essay · ~15 min read How to Convince Investors Paul Graham
  4. This is the sharpest short statement of the trade you are weighing: if you bet on a trend before the market exists, the... Chris Saad, Startup Snippets Essay · ~5 min read Being too early is the same as being wrong Chris Saad
  5. You do not need to be in anyone's network to see interest rising, you need the search data everyone already generates. Google... Google Tool Google Trends (Explore) Google
  6. This is a clean, concrete example of reading a policy change as demand rather than a headache. Instead of treating new rules as... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Article · ~15 min read Brazil's Surprising Fintech Tailwind Angela Strange and Flora Oliveira
  7. Amy Hoy names the exact trap in this question: the person who swears they would pay "if only you added X" is, as she puts it,... Stacking the Bricks Essay Vaccinate Yourself Against Crappy Customer Feedback Amy Hoy
  8. This piece sorts research methods along attitudinal versus behavioral and qualitative versus quantitative, so you can see... Nielsen Norman Group Article · About 12 minute read When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods Christian Rohrer
  9. This piece names the exact trap you are describing: in India, open disagreement often reads as rude, so a prospect will say yes... Sales & Marketing Management Article · 8 minute read Selling to India: Avoid Assumptions Gunjan Bagla
  10. This is the canonical conversation on why people give you nice-sounding feedback you cannot trust, with Rob Fitzpatrick (author... The Art of Product Podcast Podcast · About 45 minutes The Mom Test with Rob Fitzpatrick (The Art of Product, Ep. 90) Derrick Reimer and Ben Orenstein (hosts), with Rob Fitzpatrick
  11. Talking to a rival's customers is really the win-loss and churn interview discipline, and this guide from Klue (a competitive... Klue Article · ~15 min read How to Conduct Customer Churn Interviews: A Step-by-Step Guide Adam McQueen
  12. Most founders either stop at two chats with friendly users or interview forever and never ship. Seaman, a UX researcher, gives... Medium Essay · About a 10 minute read The Right Number of User Interviews Mitchel Seaman
  13. Video · About 55 minutes The Lean Startup | Eric Ries | Talks at Google Eric Ries
  14. The thing that drains most founders is treating research as a big occasional project, so it always feels heavy. Teresa Torres... Product Talk Article · About a 10 minute read This Keystone Habit Will Fuel the Rest of Your Continuous Discovery Habits Teresa Torres
  15. The people who cancel are telling you exactly what is broken, and most founders never ask. This Lean B2B guide shows how to... Lean B2B Article · ~15 min read How to Run a Customer Exit Survey to Improve Retention Etienne Garbugli
  16. Most ICP advice assumes a clean B2B buyer, which is exactly what breaks when you sell to Indian small businesses. This piece... LinkedIn Article · ~8 min read Selling to SMBs in India: it's difficult but not impossible Aditi Puri Batra
  17. This is the cleanest breakdown we found of who is actually involved in a purchase: economic buyer, champion, end user,... Dock Article · About a 12 minute read The 6 Types of B2B Buyers (and how to sell to them) The Dock Team
  18. Van der Kooij's Winning by Design frameworks are the practical standard for thinking about who you sell to in a real SaaS deal,... Winning by Design Book · About 211 pages Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization: How to Design, Build and Scale a Customer-Centric Sales Organization Jacco van der Kooij and Fernando Pizarro
  19. Elena Verna has built growth at SurveyMonkey, Miro, and others, and this episode is a founder-level walkthrough of exactly the... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · About 1 hour 16 minutes The ultimate guide to product-led sales (Elena Verna) Lenny Rachitsky with Elena Verna
  20. This is the clearest piece we found on the actual question: when a tight ICP has become too tight and you are leaving real... A Smart Bear Article · About a 15 minute read Adjacency Matrix: How to expand after PMF Jason Cohen
  21. This is the practical step after you accept that not everyone in your industry is your customer. It walks through turning a... Startups.com Article · About 12 minute read The Ideal Client Profile Is Your Startup's North Star (Stop Ignoring It) Ryan Rutan
  22. Video · About 50 minutes Julie Zhuo: How a Facebook Designer Thinks Julie Zhuo
  23. This piece lays the B2B and B2C cases side by side so you can see that the axis of specificity is genuinely different: B2B... Geeks for Growth Article · About a 10 minute read How Do Startups Market B2B vs B2C Differently? Geeks for Growth
  24. A real founder talking through the exact tension in this question: Michael built PgMustard for a market rather than only... Indie Bites (the Indie Hackers short-form sister podcast) Podcast · ~20 minute episode The slow and steady path to growth (Michael Christofides, PgMustard) James McKinven (host), Michael Christofides (guest)

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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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