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. Twitter Lite is roughly 600KB over the wire versus a 23.5MB native install, and it grew engagement in emerging markets on flaky... web.dev (Google) Article Twitter Lite increases engagement and reduces data usage web.dev (Google)
  2. If you decide the mobile web is your path, this free course teaches how to make it installable, work offline, and feel app like... web.dev (Google) Course Learn PWA web.dev (Google)
  3. A concise checklist for making a web app feel native: cross browser, offline capable, responsive, and fast. Use it to judge... web.dev (Google) Article What makes a good Progressive Web App? web.dev (Google)
  4. The neutral, vendor free reference on what a PWA is and can do, from the people who document the web. It helps you separate... MDN Web Docs (Mozilla) Article Progressive Web Apps (overview) MDN Web Docs (Mozilla)
  5. The concrete how to for giving your web app a home screen icon without the app store, which removes most of the install... MDN Web Docs (Mozilla) Article Making PWAs installable MDN Web Docs (Mozilla)
  6. Hard numbers on how much users resent being forced to install an app for something a web page could do. It quantifies the... Forbes Article 91% Of Us Hate Being Forced To Install Apps To Do Business John Koetsier
  7. A hands on walkthrough of capturing events, from autocapture to naming custom events for the moments you care about. It is... PostHog Tutorials Article · Medium read Complete guide to event tracking PostHog Tutorials
  8. A roundup of free tracking plan templates from Segment, Mixpanel, Amplitude, and others, so you do not start from a blank page.... Avo Template · Short read plus templates 9 Free Tracking Plan Templates from Mixpanel, Amplitude, Segment, and More Avo
  9. The other product analytics tool named in our short answer, strong for event based funnels and retention once you know the... Mixpanel Tool Mixpanel Mixpanel
  10. Winters scaled Grubhub, Pinterest, and Eventbrite, and here he talks plainly about liquidity, local versus global network... First Round Review Podcast · ~1 hr How to build and scale winning marketplaces (Casey Winters) Casey Winters
  11. An Indian founder walks through building a two-sided marketplace in a fragmented local market, including how pairing software... The Neon Show Podcast · ~1 hr Building a SaaS-enabled marketplace for Indian manufacturers (Sourcewiz) Siddhartha Ahluwalia
  12. Video · ~50 min Kunal Shah and Shailendra Singh on Business Models and Moats Kunal Shah
  13. If you only read one piece on this question, make it this one. Caudill studies six real cases (Netscape, Basecamp, VS Code,... herbcaudill.com Essay · 25 min read Rewrite, refactor, or reinvent? Lessons from 6 software rewrite stories Herb Caudill
  14. A short, blunt warning from the creator of Rails. DHH argues that rewriting a working application from scratch in one big bang... dhh.dk Article · 5 min read Thinking about The Big Rewrite? David Heinemeier Hansson
  15. This is the source of the second-system effect, the exact failure mode in your question. Brooks describes how the second system... Addison-Wesley (Fred Brooks) Book · 336 pages The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering Frederick P. Brooks Jr.
  16. 37signals argues for building less software and starting from the core of the product rather than the frame. That philosophy... 37signals (Getting Real) Article · 6 min read Getting Real: Epicenter Design 37signals
  17. Video · ~3.5 hr Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life (Lex Fridman #440) Pieter Levels, Lex Fridman
  18. If you're seriously weighing open-sourcing your MVP, this lays out what that path actually demands. It walks through... Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Article · ~20 min read Open Source: From Community to Commercialization Peter Levine, Jennifer Li
  19. Nadh is the CTO of Zerodha and maintainer of widely used open-source projects like listmonk, so he speaks from years of running... Kailash Nadh (nadh.in) Essay · ~10 min read "Open source" is not broken Kailash Nadh
  20. A maker community built around shipping in public where every post is a completed to-do, so it turns building in public into an... WIP (wip.co) Tool · ongoing WIP Marc Kohlbrugge
  21. When building is easier than ever and code is the least defensible thing you own, this breaks down what actually protects a... Y Combinator (Lightcone) Video · ~40 min The 7 Most Powerful Moats for AI Startups Y Combinator
  22. A clear primer on the types of moats so you can honestly assess how defensible your edge is, which is the final weigh-in your... CRV Article · ~12 min read What Is a Moat? The Startup Guide to Building Competitive Advantage CRV
  23. A useful counterweight that takes the copycat risk seriously in the AI era, when cloning a visible product is faster than ever.... The VC Corner Article · ~10 min read Building in Public Is Not What It Used To Be The VC Corner
  24. A detailed teardown of how one company turned open source into a growth and trust engine rather than a giveaway to rivals. It... How They Grow Article · ~20 min read How PostHog Grows: The Power of Being Open-Core Jaryd Hermann

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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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