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 comes straight from Razorpay, so it is the gateway itself telling you the exact pages it checks before it will activate... Razorpay Article · ~10 min read Payment Gateway Compliance: What Your Website Needs Before You Can Accept Payments Razorpay
  2. Most naming advice stops at brainstorming, this one is a plain five step sequence for actually checking whether a name is free:... Carry Article · ~10 min read How to Choose a Business Name: A 5-Step Availability Check Jaiya (Carry)
  3. This is the official government register, so if you are building in India this is where you confirm a name is not already... IP India Tool · varies IP India Trademark Public Search Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM)
  4. This is the honest counter to the assumption that brand is a consumer, website thing that B2B founders can skip. Salinas argues... IE Insights (IE University) Essay · ~10 min read The Strength of a B2B Is in Its Brand Gabriela Salinas
  5. If your growth is demos and sales, your brand lives on the deck, not a landing page, and this piece is a concrete teardown of... Dock Article · ~20 min read The 24 Best B2B Sales Deck Examples We Could Find The Dock Team
  6. This is the honest gut-check for the exact problem: a brand that reads as English-first, metro-first, Valley-first while the... afaqs! Article Why brands in India must fall in love with the vernacular Shivaji Dasgupta
  7. Video Designing for the Next Billion (Droidcon NYC 2016) Raveesh Bhalla
  8. Looking like a generic SaaS is not neutral, it makes you forgettable, and this essay names why that happens and how to climb... Northbound Brand Essay How to Differentiate Your Brand in a Sea of Sameness Samantha Temple Neukom
  9. This is a short, concrete audit list rather than agency sales copy, and it names the exact amateur signals founders can check... Logoipsum Article 5 Branding Mistakes Startups Make Logoipsum
  10. Most branding advice is one designer's taste, this is the opposite: a short, research-backed walkthrough from Nielsen Norman... Nielsen Norman Group Video · About 3 minutes Trustworthiness in Web Design: 4 Credibility Factors (Video) Aurora Harley
  11. A missing or stretched favicon is one of the smallest details that quietly makes a new startup look unfinished, and this tool... RealFaviconGenerator Tool RealFaviconGenerator RealFaviconGenerator
  12. Most guides talk about picking a palette OR a font. This one treats color and type as one system and, crucially, walks through... Metabrand Article Startup Branding Guide: Visual Identity (Color System and Typography) Metabrand
  13. A pretty palette that no one can read reads as careless, and this is the fastest way to catch that before it ships. Paste a... WebAIM Tool WebAIM Contrast Checker WebAIM
  14. This is the cleanest short read that actually weighs the two sides instead of just cheerleading for a personal brand. It lays... Forbes Essay · 6 to 8 min read Personal Brand Or Business Brand: Which Should You Build? Jodie Cook
  15. Video · short talk Dave Gerhardt's Top Advice on Building a Founder Brand in 2025 Dave Gerhardt
  16. This is the operational, do-this-in-order piece for the scary part of a rebrand: not losing the search traffic you already... Brand Voice Article · ~15 min read A Strategic SEO Checklist for Startups Undergoing a Rebrand or Domain Migration Brand Voice
  17. Before you spend a rupee on a new logo, read what actually happened when real companies rebranded: Lego pulling back from near... Literal Humans Essay · ~12 min read 5 Rebranding Case Studies and What We Can Learn From Them Literal Humans
  18. Video · ~15 min The Strategy for Rebranding Our $40M Company Kit (Nathan Barry)
  19. Most consistency advice stops at 'make a style guide', which falls apart the moment ten different people are posting across six... Bynder Article · Long read, ~12 to 15 min How to maintain brand consistency across multiple channels Bynder
  20. Day-to-day posts are where a brand quietly falls apart, because each one gets rebuilt from scratch in a slightly different... Canva Template · Template library, pick and reuse in minutes Free and customizable social media (social graphic) templates Canva
  21. This is the most widely used playbook for turning a fuzzy brand message into a clear one, and its whole premise is exactly your... Goodreads Book · About 240 pages Building a StoryBrand 2.0: Clarify Your Message So Customers Will Listen Donald Miller
  22. Video · About 16 minutes How to clarify your message so people listen (TEDxNashville) Donald Miller
  23. The article walks a four step method and then hands you an editable Google Doc you can fill in, which is what you actually need... Semrush Template How to Define Your Brand's Tone of Voice (with free template) Eugenia Verbina
  24. This piece argues something useful and slightly against the grain: the goal is not to find people who already sound exactly... Skyword, The Content Standard Essay Maintaining One Brand Voice When Working with Multiple Writers Erin Ollila

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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