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. A structured, free program that reverse-engineers how B2B startups actually find product-market fit, built from patterns across... First Round Course · multi-part guide The PMF Method First Round
  2. Aulet, who runs MIT's entrepreneurship center, lays out how to do primary research properly: observe, listen, and interact with... VentureWell (Bill Aulet, MIT) Article · medium read A Practical Guide to Primary Market Research Bill Aulet
  3. Written by an investor who founded and sold a marketplace himself, this is a structured handbook covering business models,... Version One Ventures Article · ~45 min read A Guide to Marketplaces Boris Wertz and Angela Tran
  4. Grinda has backed over a thousand marketplaces, and his blunt take is that roughly 95 percent are demand constrained, not... Fabrice Grinda Essay · ~30 min read Lessons Learned Building Online Marketplaces Fabrice Grinda
  5. Udemy's cofounder explains, with real numbers, how they hand recruited supply when cold calls failed, even creating a course... The Hustle Article · ~15 min read How Udemy Found Their First 1,000 Instructors Sam Parr
  6. Video · ~35 min watch How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business (talk) Lenny Rachitsky
  7. Video · ~50 min watch The Ultimate Guide to Two-Sided Marketplaces with Jeff Jordan Jeff Jordan and Harry Stebbings
  8. Kromatic works with corporate and startup teams on lean experiments, and this piece is precise about the difference and the... Kromatic Article Wizard of Oz Prototyping vs. Concierge Test Kromatic
  9. A structured how-to you can follow, covering when to run a Wizard of Oz test, the steps, the tools, and the pros and cons.... Learning Loop Template Wizard of Oz Experiment (play) Learning Loop
  10. This entry frames the Wizard of Oz test as one experiment in a wider validation toolkit, with clear guidance on cost, evidence... Kromatic (The Real Startup Book) Template Wizard of Oz (The Real Startup Book) Kromatic (The Real Startup Book)
  11. A practical walkthrough of when a concierge MVP is the right fit, when it is not, and how to actually run one. It is helpful... Upsilon Article What Is a Concierge MVP and When to Use It Upsilon
  12. A tight 17 minute talk that distills The Mom Test into the one habit that matters most: stop presenting your idea, because... The Conference by Media Evolution Video · 17 min Rob Fitzpatrick: (not) presenting your idea Rob Fitzpatrick
  13. The reference book on interview craft itself: how to build rapport, ask follow ups, and manage your own bias in the room.... Rosenfeld Media Book · 248 pages Interviewing Users: How to Uncover Compelling Insights (2nd Edition) Steve Portigal
  14. A direct answer to the question every founder types into search: what should I actually ask. Torres argues for throwing away... Product Talk Article · 12 min read Ask Teresa: What Are the Best Customer Interview Questions? Teresa Torres
  15. A founder story about doing customer research so carefully that you learn things you did not want to hear. It shows what... First Round Review Article · 20 min read Webflow's Path to Product-Market Fit: Lessons on Rigorous Customer Empathy First Round Review
  16. A ready to use script for interviewing a recent customer about why they switched, built entirely around past behaviour and... Deploy Empathy Template · script Customer Interview Script Template: The JTBD Switch Interview Michele Hansen
  17. Video · ~45 min The Mom Test (author talk) Rob Fitzpatrick
  18. A breakdown of how Superhuman turned a waitlist into a filter using onboarding calls, surveys, and referral gating, so joining... Waitlister Article Superhuman's Waitlist Case Study: 180K Users at $30/Month Waitlister
  19. An Indian investor and operator describes validating product/market fit for under 100 dollars, using a scrappy live test rather... The Neon Show Podcast Sanjay Swamy: Validating Market Fit for Under $100 at ZipDial Siddhartha Ahluwalia
  20. Kamath spells out a hard Indian truth: services that Americans pay a premium for, Indians expect for free, so the same feature... Business Today Article Robinhood charges for speed, India gives it free: Nithin Kamath drops a brutal reality check Nithin Kamath (via Business Today)
  21. Pike weighs pre-selling honestly, including when a signed commitment truly validates demand and when it does not fit your... Allen Pike Essay Sell First, or Build First? Allen Pike
  22. A short, tactical list of ways to test willingness to pay, from small paid pilots to letters of intent to pricing-page click... The Glimpse Article 6 Practical Ways to Find Out if Your Customers are Willing to Pay The Glimpse
  23. A first-hand account of how a founder recruited a small group of likely buyers, shipped the most basic thing, and iterated on... Intercom Blog Article How to launch with a validated idea Garrett Moon
  24. Jackson's test is blunt and useful: can you name five specific real people who need this and would buy it. If you cannot, you... justinjackson.ca Essay A simple way to validate your startup idea Justin Jackson

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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