Founder FAQ
Common questions mapped directly to wiki articles. Find your question, follow the link.
Finding an Idea
“How do I come up with a startup idea?” Don’t brainstorm. Live in the future and notice what’s missing. → ideation
“Is my idea good enough?” Apply the Well test: “Who wants this so badly they’ll use a rough version from unknown founders?” → ideation
“Someone else is already doing this. Should I give up?” No. A crowded market signals real demand. Build something 10x better. → competitive-strategy
“My idea seems boring/tedious. Is that bad?” That’s Schlep Blindness — it’s actually good. The tedium others avoid is your moat. → ideation, case-study-stripe
Validating
“How do I know if people actually want this?” Talk to 30-50 potential customers. Follow the Mom Test rules: ask about their life, not your idea. → customer-development
“What should I build first?” The minimum experiment to test your riskiest assumption. That might be a landing page, not code. → minimum-viable-product
“How do I know when I have product-market fit?” Survey users: “How would you feel if you could no longer use this?” ≥40% “very disappointed” = PMF. → product-market-fit
“Should I pivot?” If the data consistently contradicts your hypothesis, yes. 70% of successful startups pivot at least once. → pivoting
Building
“How do I get my first 10 users?” Manually. One by one. Door to door if you have to. “Give me your laptop” and set them up. → do-things-that-dont-scale, user-acquisition
“How should I think about building product after PMF?” 50% doubling down on what users love, 50% removing barriers for almost-fans. → product-development, product-market-fit
“What metrics should I track?” Use AARRR: Acquisition → Activation → Retention → Referral → Revenue. Find your bottleneck stage. → startup-metrics
Money
“Should I raise money or bootstrap?” Depends on your market. Winner-take-all with network effects → consider VC. Everything else → bootstrap first. → bootstrapping, fundraising, where-the-experts-disagree
“How much should I charge?” More than you think. Price at 1/10th of value delivered. Raise 5% per cohort until losing 20% on price. → pricing-strategy
“Am I going to run out of money?” Run PG’s test: at current expenses and growth rate, do you reach profitability before cash runs out? → fundraising
“What should my pitch deck include?” Mission, problem, solution, why now, market size, business model, team, traction, the ask. → pitching
“How do I reach customers cost-effectively?” Nail ONE distribution channel. The power law says one will dominate all others. → distribution
Team
“How do I choose a cofounder?” Someone you know well, with complementary skills. Equal equity. 4-year vest. Hard conversations early. → cofounder-dynamics
“When should I start hiring?” After PMF. Not before. Then spend 25% of your time recruiting. → hiring
“How do I build culture?” It’s defined by who you hire, fire, and promote. Not perks. → company-culture
“What’s a ‘barrel’ and why does it matter?” A person who ships end-to-end. The rarest and most valuable hire. Your output is constrained by barrels, not headcount. → operations
Leading
“Should I delegate or stay hands-on?” Founder mode: stay deep on product/strategy/key hires. Delegate operations/finance/legal. → founder-mode
“Everything feels broken. Is that normal?” Yes. 87.7% of founders face mental health challenges. Pace yourself. → founder-psychology
“Am I in wartime or peacetime?” If your company faces an existential threat, you’re at war. If you’re growing in a favorable market, you’re at peace. The skills are different. → wartime-peacetime-ceo
“How do I actually run this thing day-to-day?” Daily: check dashboard, talk to users, ship, edit. Weekly: align, build, reflect. Monthly: health check. → founders-operating-system
Learning from Others
“Show me a company that did it right.” Airbnb (trust), Stripe (schlep blindness), Slack (pivot). → case-study-airbnb, case-study-stripe, case-study-slack
“Show me what NOT to do.” WeWork: every anti-pattern in one company. → case-study-wework
“Where do the experts disagree?” On 7 fundamental questions. The skill is knowing which framework fits your situation. → where-the-experts-disagree
“What about AI? Does all this still apply?” Yes, but the economics changed. Solo founders are viable. Building is cheap. Distribution is the new moat. → ai-era-entrepreneurship
“Give me everything on one page.” → cheat-sheet
“Where do I start reading?” → start-here