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. The dedicated on-ramp for DPIIT startups to list innovative products even without a pre-existing category, and the mechanism... gem.gov.in Tool · program page + onboarding GeM Startup Runway, Sell Directly to Government Buyers Government e-Marketplace (GeM) In 7 answers
  2. CB Insights read hundreds of real startup postmortems and found that poor product-market fit (around 43 percent) is the single... CB Insights Article · ~15 min read The Top 12 Reasons Startups Fail CB Insights In 7 answers
  3. Video · ~10 min How to get your first ten customers Michael Seibel In 7 answers
  4. The only honest way to answer "is SEO working" is to look at real search data, and Google Search Console is the free,... Google Tool · Free web tool Google Search Console Google In 7 answers
  5. An Indian founder who actually built and scaled a SaaS business at home talks bluntly about pricing, instead of a generic... The Neon Show Podcast 7 Myths About Selling B2B SaaS In India (ft. Unicommerce founder Kapil Makhija) Siddhartha Ahluwalia (host), Kapil Makhija (guest) In 7 answers
  6. Once you have negotiated the pool size, this is the guide that stops the pool from becoming a tax trap for the very employees... Treelife Article · 25 min read ESOP Taxation in India: Complete Guide for Founders and Startups Treelife In 7 answers
  7. YC's counterpoint is worth hearing precisely because it pushes back on being stingy: if this person is a real co-founder doing... Y Combinator Article · 10 min read How to Split Equity Among Co-Founders Y Combinator In 7 answers
  8. Blomfield (founder of Monzo and GoCarchless, now a YC partner) gives the concrete mechanics of closing that first B2B deal:... Y Combinator Startup Library Article · 25 min read The Sales Playbook for Founders Tom Blomfield In 7 answers
  9. From the creators of the Design Sprint, a structured two-day method to turn a fuzzy idea into a sharp, testable bet before you... Lenny's Podcast Podcast · ~90 min The Foundation Sprint: Test Any Idea in 2 Days Jake Knapp & John Zeratsky In 7 answers
  10. Video · 5 min Clayton Christensen: When Only a Milkshake Will Do the Job Clayton Christensen In 7 answers
  11. A founder-friendly crash course on planning and running discovery interviews, with tactics from researchers at Zoom, Zapier,... First Round Review Article · 20 min read A UX Research Crash Course for Founders Jane Davis In 7 answers
  12. A free, short predecessor to The Right It for when you want the method without buying a book. It lays out cheap experiments... pretotyping.org Book · ~90 pages Pretotype It (free PDF) Alberto Savoia In 7 answers
  13. A one-page tool for writing down what you have learned about a customer's jobs, pains, and gains, then checking whether your... Strategyzer Tool · template The Value Proposition Canvas Strategyzer In 7 answers
  14. Chesky tells the Airbnb story in his own voice, including flying to New York to meet hosts and re-shoot their listing photos by... Masters of Scale (Reid Hoffman) Podcast · 35 min Airbnb's Brian Chesky: Do Things That Don't Scale Reid Hoffman In 7 answers
  15. Airtable is the friendly database that sits under most no-code stacks, and it is where many founders quietly run the first... Airtable (airtable.com) Tool Airtable Airtable (airtable.com) In 7 answers
  16. This is the book length version of the exact instinct in our short answer, that you generate real insight by living in the... Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman (patternbreakers.com) Book · ~304 pages Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future Mike Maples Jr. and Peter Ziebelman In 7 answers
  17. Dixon argues that the hobbies smart engineers pour weekends into today become mainstream work in ten years, because engineers... cdixon.org (Chris Dixon) Essay · ~4 min read What the Smartest People Do on the Weekend Is What Everyone Else Will Do During the Week in Ten Years Chris Dixon In 7 answers
  18. Written by a former FBI hostage negotiator, not a sales trainer, which is exactly why it works for founders who recoil at... Chris Voss Book Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It Chris Voss In 7 answers
  19. Tally's own price page for TallyPrime, the accounting software most Indian CAs already use. Silver for one PC is Rs 750 a... tallysolutions.com Tool · Pricing page Buy TallyPrime: plans and prices Tally Solutions In 7 answers
  20. Naval's concept of 'specific knowledge', the thing that feels like play to you and work to everyone else, is the clearest... nav.al Article · ~20 min read How to Get Rich (specific knowledge, leverage & judgment) Naval Ravikant In 6 answers
  21. The fastest path from a spreadsheet to a polished mobile or internal app, used by 100k+ companies. When your data lives in... glideapps.com Tool · platform Glide, Apps From Spreadsheets Glide In 6 answers
  22. The foundational text on human-centered design that every product person should read once. It rewires how you see every... jnd.org / Basic Books Book · ~350 pages The Design of Everyday Things Don Norman In 6 answers
  23. The single best free walkthrough of what belongs on a landing page, with a real 10-step structure and copy examples for every... Marketing Examples Article · 15 min read The step-by-step guide to landing pages that convert Harry Dry In 6 answers
  24. Ahrefs' official, regularly-updated SEO fundamentals guide, a canonical primary source, not blogspam, covering the five things... Ahrefs Article · 30 min read SEO Basics: Beginner's Guide to SEO Success Joshua Hardwick (Ahrefs) In 6 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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