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 India-specific piece the global guides cannot give you: it names the exact ROC and MCA filings investors reconcile... Treelife Article · 18 min read Legal Due Diligence Checklist for Indian Startups: What Investors Actually Check Treelife
  2. A clean, mechanics-first explainer on why every founder, including you, goes on a 4-year vest with a 1-year cliff. It spells... Rho Article · 9 min read Vesting 101: Structuring Equity for Founders and Employees Pia Mikhael
  3. This is the ranked view of which terms actually bite, grounded in the NVCA model documents that most institutional term sheets... Glencoyne Article · 25 min read NVCA Term Sheet Standards: What Founders Must Know About Economics and Control Glencoyne Legal team
  4. This is the canonical argument for why you line up a lead first: a lead takes at least half the round, negotiates the term... Venture Hacks Article · 9 min read How do I find a lead investor? (Part 1) Nivi
  5. When you are deciding between a global program and staying close to your Indian market, this lays the actual terms side by side... Ellenox Article · 15 min read India Startup Accelerators 2026: 26 Programs Compared Ellenox
  6. This is the honest counterweight to YC's own pitch: the hard outcome data on what YC's India bet actually produced and why... Asia Tech Review Article · 8 min read Y Combinator reaps big rewards in India but its future in Asia is long over Jon Russell
  7. Once you decide you have a real reason to incorporate outside India, this is the head-to-head that tells you where. It puts... Treelife Article · 20 min read Foreign Subsidiary Jurisdiction for Indian Startups: Singapore, UAE, UK or US? Treelife
  8. The honest piece on who can raise on team versus who needs revenue. It states plainly that seed now looks like what Series A... CRV Article · 18 min read What Seed Investors Look For in 2026 CRV
  9. This is the playbook for exactly your situation: it tells you to lock down runway before you are desperate, cut burn with a... First Round Review Article · 25 min read The Founder's Field Guide for Navigating a Crisis First Round Review (recession-era founders, investors, and operating CEOs)
  10. This is the honest founder account you need before you convince yourself a cash crunch just happened to you: Benson walks... First Round Review Article · 15 min read The 5 Early Mistakes That Almost Killed This Founder's Startup, and How He Survived Clark Benson (Founder and CEO, Ranker)
  11. This is the fill-in-the-blank machine for the tagline itself. It teaches Steve Blank's 'we help X do Y by doing Z' formula and... Help Scout Article · 10 min read How to Write a Value Proposition (+ 6 Modern Examples) Help Scout team
  12. You asked for annotated real title slides from funded startups, and this is the deepest running archive of exactly that:... TechCrunch Article · 15 min read per teardown Pitch Deck Teardown (TechCrunch series) Haje Jan Kamps
  13. CRV is a top-tier US fund, and this piece draws the exact line your question asks about: it states plainly that detailed... CRV Article · 15 min read What Investors Look For in a Pitch Deck (Seed & Series A) CRV
  14. This is the data-room number, not the slide: a free, download-and-fill spreadsheet from a Point Nine partner that builds MRR... SaaStr Template · 20 min setup SaaS Financial Plan 2.0 (Christoph Janz's downloadable model) Christoph Janz (Point Nine Capital)
  15. It walks one worked example (a specialty foods company) all the way down the funnel and, crucially, builds SOM bottom-up from... TechCrunch Article · 9 min read How to calculate your startup's TAM, SAM and SOM Marjorie Radlo-Zandi
  16. This is the clearest breakdown of the two-decks-from-one-file idea, and it teaches with real artifacts, not theory: it puts... VIP Graphics Article · 9 min read Reader Decks vs. Presenter Decks: Which One Do You Actually Need? VIP Graphics
  17. This is the exact 21-slide deck that got Front three term sheets in ten days, published by the founder herself with honest... Medium (Mathilde Collin, CEO of Front) Template · 12 min read + 21-slide deck Front Series A Deck (with the founder's own slide-by-slide feedback) Mathilde Collin
  18. This is the how-to for the exact 'proof of demand you actually gathered' your answer calls for. It gives you the five things a... Alchemist Accelerator Article · 10 min read Using Pilots, POCs, and LOIs to Build Trust and Scale Alchemist Accelerator
  19. This is the guide that argues your exact answer: stop stapling a Stanford and a Tesla logo under your name and instead show why... TechCrunch Article · 8 min read The team slide is the most important slide in a startup pitch deck Haje Jan Kamps
  20. The cleanest India pivot story told by the founder himself: Meesho began as Fashnear, a hyperlocal fashion app, and became a... Y Combinator Video · 35 min On Starting and Scaling Indian Shopping Site Meesho Vidit Aatrey (Meesho co-founder and CEO)
  21. This is the canonical takedown of the 2x2 you conveniently sit atop, written by a VC who screens decks for a living. It hands... Dreamit Ventures Article · 8 min read How to Create a Killer Competition Slide (Hint: Don't Use a Magic Quadrant!) Jack Kaufman
  22. Short and blunt, straight from a working seed VC. Walk's one question, 'what would your competitors say about this slide?', is... Homebrew (hunterwalk.com) Essay · 4 min read If Your Pitch Deck Has a Competitive 2x2, I'm Going to Ask You This Question Hunter Walk
  23. The India native counterpart, written for founders pitching Blume, Accel India and Lightspeed, where 'no competition' still... YourStory Article · 10 min read Pitch deck playbook: How to create a pitch that gets funded YourStory Team
  24. This is the sharpest framing of why your ask is really a bet on the next valuation step. It introduces 'accretive milestones'... The Holloway Guide to Raising Venture Capital Article · 15 min read Determining How Much to Raise Holloway (Andy Sparks et al.)

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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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