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.

Years on, Ries revisits what the lean method got right and where the MVP idea gets abused, which is precisely the trap in your... Lenny's Newsletter Article · ~4,000 words Reflections on a Movement: Eric Ries on the Lean Startup Lenny Rachitsky and Eric Ries
This is where the phrase undifferentiated heavy lifting comes from, and it names exactly the trap you are trying to avoid. The... AWS News Blog Article · 6 min read We Build Muck, So You Don't Have To Jeff Barr
Auth is the piece founders most often assume is easy, and this walks through why it quietly is not: password storage, resets,... With Blue Ink (Alessandro Segala) Article · 15 min read Please everyone, stop writing your own user authentication code Alessandro Segala
Once you have decided to buy auth, this independent hands on comparison helps you actually pick one. It weighs developer... Hyperknot blog Article · 20 min read Comparing Auth providers (Supabase, Firebase, Clerk, Auth.js, Ory and others) Zsolt Ero
This is the concrete proof that payments are a solved problem you should borrow: a few steps and you are charging real cards... Stripe Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup Accept a payment Stripe
If your MVP is really about testing willingness to pay, you may not need to write payment code at all: a Payment Link is a URL... Stripe Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup No-code options for using Stripe (Payment Links) Stripe
For an Indian MVP, this is usually the right payments choice because it supports UPI, cards, net banking, and wallets out of... Razorpay Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup Razorpay Quickstart Guide Razorpay
Clerk gives you prebuilt sign up, sign in, and profile screens, so the whole login surface arrives finished rather than... Clerk Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup Clerk Quickstart Clerk
Firebase Auth is the battle tested default for mobile first and Google Cloud based apps, with a very generous free tier. It... Firebase Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup Firebase Authentication Google
Supabase pairs auth with a Postgres database, so if your app is data heavy you get login and storage from one open source stack... Supabase Documentation Tool · Docs plus setup Supabase Auth Supabase
Sending reliable email (verification, password resets, notifications) is its own deliverability problem, and Resend lets you... Resend Tool · Docs plus setup Resend Documentation Resend
Cohen, who built WP Engine into a unicorn, shows how he validated it by getting real people to commit real money before... A Smart Bear (Jason Cohen) Essay Vetting a startup: The systematic birth of WP Engine Jason Cohen
This addresses your actual fear head on: what a migration off no-code really looks like once you succeed. It lays out the... Lowcode Agency Article What Happens When You Outgrow Bubble Lowcode Agency
A concrete Indian example: Flexiple, started by IIM Ahmedabad grads, ran early on Google Sheets, Airtable, and Zapier held... Bubble Blog Article How Flexiple Uses Bubble to Match Tech Talent to Jobs Bubble Blog
Tossell built Makerpad, the best known no-code education community (later acquired by Zapier), so his orientation to the... Codecademy Blog Article Getting to know no-code with Makerpad's Ben Tossell Ben Tossell
Context on how far no-code has come and how seriously it is taken, from a major tech publication. It helps you see that... TechCrunch Article No-code Bubble raises $100M to make technical co-founders obsolete TechCrunch
DoorDash started as PaloAltoDelivery.com, a one-hour landing page with PDF menus and a phone number, and the founders... Startup Archive Article · 5 min read Stanley Tang: Three Lessons from the Founding of DoorDash Startup Archive
A clear, careful definition of the landing-page test from a respected product discovery teacher, including its real limits. It... Product Talk (Teresa Torres) Article · 6 min read Landing Page Test Teresa Torres
Maurya gives you a repeatable way to rank risk instead of guessing at it. He points you at the universal early risks (do these... LEANSTACK blog (Ash Maurya) Article · 10 min read How to Identify Your Riskiest Business Model Assumptions Ash Maurya
This is a concrete workshop method for exactly the ranking step in our answer. You list every desirability, viability, and... Strategyzer (David J. Bland) Article · 9 min read How Assumptions Mapping Can Focus Your Teams On Running Experiments That Matter David J. Bland
Savoia, a former Google innovation lead, makes the case that most ideas fail because they are the wrong 'it', not because they... Stanford eCorner ETL (Alberto Savoia) Video · 50 min Build the Right It (Pretotyping) Alberto Savoia
Cohen names the perfectionist's core bug: maximizing every decision when good enough would do. He gives you a rule for when to... A Smart Bear Essay · 12 min read Satisficing vs Maximizing Jason Cohen
Your short answer says polishing is often fear of the market's verdict, and this is the book about exactly that fear, which... stevenpressfield.com Book · 190 pages The War of Art Steven Pressfield
If you read one chapter, this is the core argument: doing less is a feature, not a compromise. It helps you strip your MVP down... Basecamp (37signals) Article Getting Real: Build Less Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson

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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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