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 one of the earliest honest pieces from inside the Indian startup ecosystem to name founder depression out loud, with... YourStory Article · 8 min read Is Depression a Well-Guarded Secret in the Startup World? YourStory
  2. Most founders wave around 'strong opinions loosely held' as cover for never actually updating. Chin, writing from running his... Commoncog Essay · ~12 min read 'Strong Opinions, Weakly Held' Doesn't Work That Well Cedric Chin
  3. Feld, a founder and investor who has sat through decades of these conversations, names the trap: 'strong opinions loosely held'... Feld Thoughts Essay · ~5 min read Bad Entrepreneurial Cliches: Strong Opinions Loosely Held Brad Feld
  4. A concrete India case of a founder swallowing his own instinct. Kamath started Zerodha believing 'more people solve more... Business Today Article · ~4 min read Nithin Kamath reveals why Zerodha deliberately stayed a 1,000-person company Business Today
  5. It puts the double standard in real founders' own words: Ahana Gautam (Open Secret) told an investor who called her 'too... Forbes India Article · 12 min read This Is Me: Indian Women Founders Are Taking Up Space By Being Unapologetic Forbes India Staff
  6. Sairee Chahal built SHEROES because she saw the exact load you are carrying: a network where women talk about in-laws,... Inc42 Article · 15 min read Sairee Chahal: The SHEROES Story And Women Entrepreneurs In India Inc42 (interview with Sairee Chahal)
  7. This is the room the answer tells you to find. SheThePeople has run a women-founder community for over a decade (70,000+ women... SheThePeople Tool · Recurring community + annual summit She Leads India: SheThePeople's Women Founder Community and Summit Shaili Chopra, SheThePeople
  8. Routledge built and wound down Sanctus, then wrote the piece almost nobody writes: the one that treats the end of a company as... James Routledge (founder of Sanctus) Essay · 6 min read Founder Startup Grief James Routledge
  9. This is a real founder's real weekly template, not a theory. Dorsey ran two companies by giving every day one job: Monday... Let's Reach Success Article · 7 min read Jack Dorsey's Daily Work Schedule That Helps Him Manage 2 Companies Lidiya Kesarovska
  10. This is the practical how-to behind our answer: it hands you the tools to actually find your peak window (Michael Breus's... Zapier Article · 12 min read Find your chronotype and schedule your productivity Deirdre Mundorf
  11. This is the cleanest statement of the exact move you need: stop treating a messaging channel as a live wire and start treating... calnewport.com Essay · 6 min read On the Surprising Benefits of an Un-Mobile Phone Cal Newport
  12. This is the researcher who coined attention residue explaining, in her own words, why answering one WhatsApp ping costs far... University of Washington Bothell School of Business Article · 8 min read Attention Residue (Sophie Leroy's research) Sophie Leroy
  13. This names your actual battlefield: the 9:30pm ping where the Indian workday pretends it is not over. It reports that 88% of... Open Magazine Essay · 10 min read After-Hours Work in Focus as India Debates Right to Disconnect Open Magazine editorial
  14. It hands you the one rule that keeps a solo stack from becoming a second job: automate what repeats, not what teaches you. That... Indie Hackers Article · 8 min read How solo founders are building profitable businesses from scratch Indie Hackers community
  15. Most 'learn to say no' advice stops at the sermon. This one hands you the actual sentences, 27 of them, so declining warmly and... The Async Newsletter (Twist / Doist) Article · 12 min read 27 tactful scripts for saying no to work meetings Becky Kane
  16. India's most respected bootstrapped founder built a profitable giant while guarding his attention hard: he shuts down work... antoinebuteau.com Article · 7 min read Lessons from Nithin Kamath, CEO of Zerodha Antoine Buteau
  17. This is the rare piece that gives you the actual number instead of vibes: plan a sprint to about 80% and hold 20% back as an... Boldstart Ventures Article · 10 min read How engineering teams handle unplanned work Anna Debenham
  18. Buffer time only works if the fires eventually get smaller, and this piece is about exactly that: how to stop reactive work... LeadDev Article · 9 min read How to break the cycle of firefighting LeadDev
  19. This is the E-Myth idea made measurable: Levels CEO Sam Corcos logged 7,922 hours across two years into ten categories and... First Round Review Article · 18 min read An Exact Breakdown of How One CEO Spent His First Two Years of Company-Building Sam Corcos (as told to First Round Review)
  20. The cleanest founder-written explainer of the E-Myth distinction, from a repeat founder (Pardot, exited to ExactTarget) rather... David Cummings on Startups Essay · 4 min read Working In the Business vs On the Business David Cummings
  21. Sparks cofounded Mattermark and Holloway, so this is a founder's actual playbook, not a coach's theory. He gives you the whole... Andy Sparks (Hoo Boy) Essay · 12 min read Conducting a Time Audit Andy Sparks
  22. This is the cleanest lightweight recipe to just start: track in 30-minute blocks against six named categories (revenue,... Founder's Best Friend Article · 10 min read The Founder's Time Audit: Where Your Hours Actually Go Founder's Best Friend
  23. This is the closest thing to a practical runbook for making yourself unreachable for a day. The core move, Pre-Decision... On Call COO Article · 8 min read 5 Things Founders Never Do Before Vacation (But Should) Melissa Franks
  24. India's most respected bootstrapped founder, who built Zerodha to profitability without VC money and openly caps headcount to... The South First Article · 7 min read Nithin Kamath of Zerodha says he had a mild stroke due to stress, poor sleep, and overworking The South First staff

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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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