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 a real, published pay formula, not opinion: Salary = (SF 50th-percentile benchmark x cost-of-living multiplier x role... Buffer Article · 15 min read The Next Evolution of Transparent Salaries: Our Remote-First Formula and Salary Calculator Buffer
  2. Before you lock in location-based bands, read the honest case against them: this lays out where cost-of-living pay breeds... Sifted Article · 10 min read Should you earn less because you live somewhere cheaper? Sifted
  3. Your answer says 'write the decision, the reasoning, and who owns it in one place', and this is the copy-paste template for... GitHub Template · 30 min read Decision Record: how to initiate and complete decisions for teams Joel Parker Henderson
  4. Written by a two-time exited founder who now coaches CEOs, this maps almost exactly onto our answer: split business focus... Matt Munson (2x exited founder, CEO coach) Essay · 14 min read How to Plan a Great Team Offsite Matt Munson
  5. This is the missing India cost context: real rupee numbers for a distributed team that can drive out of Mumbai instead of... StayVista Journal Article · 12 min read Corporate Offsite Destinations Near Mumbai: Where to Go, What to Spend and How to Plan StayVista Editorial
  6. POSH is the compliance founders skip until a complaint or a diligence checklist forces it, and this is a clean, dedicated... greytHR Article · 12 min read POSH Act Explained: Full Form, Meaning and Compliance Guide greytHR
  7. Doist runs a 100+ person team across every time zone with 80-90% of communication written, and this piece is their playbook... Doist / Twist Article · 18 min read Asynchronous Communication: The Real Reason Why Remote Workers Are More Productive Doist
  8. Newport diagnoses exactly why distributed teams end up always waiting on the founder: the hyperactive hive mind of ad hoc Slack... calnewport.com Essay · 12 min read On Productivity and Remote Work Cal Newport
  9. This is the exact scene you are dreading, in Indian parents' own words. Vineeta Singh (SUGAR) turned down a lucrative offer and... Humans of Bombay Article · 8 min read 5 Indian startup stories: founders who turned down the safe job and faced the family they had to answer to Humans of Bombay
  10. Kamath built Zerodha with zero VC, so his advice is un-hyped and unusually honest for an Indian founder of his stature. He blew... nithinkamath.me Essay · Varies (essay collection) Nithin Kamath: musings on risk, quitting, and the thin line between passion and foolishness Nithin Kamath
  11. This is the clearest naming of the exact trap in the question: Gorman, a therapist who works with founders, calls it identity... Ingmar Gorman (psychotherapist for entrepreneurs) Article · 10 min read When the Startup Becomes You: Burnout, Founders' Identity, and Therapy for Entrepreneurs Ingmar Gorman, PhD
  12. Colonna is the VC-turned-coach founders actually trust on this, and here he tells it from the inside: after losing his... On Being Podcast · 51 min listen (full transcript available) Can You Really Bring Your Whole Self to Work? (Jerry Colonna) Jerry Colonna, interviewed by Krista Tippett
  13. This is the piece that proves burnout is an operations problem, not a mood. Saxena's line is the whole distinction you need:... First Round Review Article · 14 min read Practical Frameworks for Beating Burnout Roli Saxena (interviewed by First Round Review)
  14. The rare founder account of hitting the wall and recovering without stepping away from the company. El-Hage burned out in years... First Round Review Podcast · 30 min read The First-Time Founder's Guide to Learning Everything the Hard Way Steve El-Hage, founder and CEO of Drop
  15. India's most respected bootstrapped founder built the exact week-level defenses this answer argues for, and runs a company of... Business Today Article · 5 min read Zerodha's Nithin Kamath stops all work chats after 6 pm; here's why Business Today staff, reporting Nithin Kamath
  16. This is a founder who built India's largest broker while being openly, publicly pessimistic about his own business for years,... Zerodha (Z-Connect) Essay · ~8 min read 15 years of Zerodha: The risk crystallises Nithin Kamath
  17. This is the scheduled brutal-honesty ritual, made concrete enough to actually run. You book a 60 to 90 minute session, tell the... stephenlynch.net Article · ~7 min read How to Conduct a Premortem Stephen Lynch
  18. An unusually honest first-person autopsy of a co-founder split, and it names the warning signs our answer says to catch early.... yirenlu.com Essay · ~10 min read My co-founder and I broke up. Here's a post-mortem. Yiren Lu
  19. A well-known Indian founder (Nearbuy, then a huge creator following) writes plainly about the one move that repairs a... Inc42 Article · ~7 min read The Founder's Role: Conflict Resolution Ankur Warikoo
  20. Horowitz names the exact thing that happens to your head in a crisis: the 3am spiral, food losing its taste, self-doubt... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Essay · 5 min read The Struggle Ben Horowitz
  21. This is what a calm founder looks like staring at his own existential risk. Kamath writes, plainly and in public, that over 80... Nithin Kamath (Substack) Essay · 6 min read Concentration risk in broking business Nithin Kamath
  22. This is the practical answer to 'define your own two or three metrics.' Tabb splits numbers into vanity metrics (downloads,... First Round Review Article · Medium read (about 15 min) I'm Sorry, But Those Are Vanity Metrics Lloyd Tabb (via First Round Review)
  23. Buechler was Y Combinator's in-house founder coach and therapist, so this is the rare piece written by someone who has sat... Scale Yourself (Amy Buechler) Article · 10 min read The Difference Between Coaching and Therapy (for Founders) Amy Buechler
  24. Jerry Colonna was a top-tier VC before he became the coach founders call when the company is doing fine but they are not.... Reboot.io Tool · Site plus podcast archive Reboot: CEO Coaching and the Emotional Side of Leadership (Jerry Colonna) Jerry Colonna

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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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