All of our Starting Up articles

Starting Up

Is Your Startup Idea Any Good? Borrow These Validation Tactics from the Founders of Linear, Mercury and More

Founders share the unconventional ways they found conviction in their startup ideas.

Starting Up

To Learn a New Market, Start by Building Your Product — Tactics From a Twitter PM Turned Healthcare Founder

Color co-founder and CEO Othman Laraki built a billion-dollar company in an industry he had zero professional experience in. Here, he shares four product-building tactics that helped him learn the healthcare industry.

Starting Up

The Founder’s Guide to Building a V1 of Customer Success

A CS leader who has built the function from the ground up shares where founders should start — from how to hire to the most important metrics to track.

Starting Up

Thinking About Taking the Founder Leap? Here’s How to Prep for the Emotional Gauntlet

How to start building your emotional toolkit for the founder journey ahead, with advice from psychologist Dr. Emily Anhalt.

Starting Up

You’re Not Ready for a Head of Growth: Run This Founder-Led Growth Playbook Instead

Founders are responsible for figuring out how their business is going to grow. Use these tactics — specifically designed for founders — to uncover your most impactful growth levers.

Starting Up

Building a Deep Tech Company? Most Startup Advice Doesn’t Apply — Read This Instead

Learn from Loyal founder Celine Halioua’s rigorous approach to milestone-based planning, fundraising and multi-product strategy.

Starting Up

How I Spent 17,784 Hours in 5 Years as a Startup Founder

Sam Corcos, co-founder & CEO of Levels, shares a detailed look into exactly how he spent 5 years building the company, with reflections on what changed in the transition from very early-stage to scale up.

Starting Up

The GTM Inflection Points That Powered Clay to a $1B+ Valuation

How do you create a go-to-market machine that’s able to turbocharge (and then sustain) revenue growth? Clay co-founder Varun Anand shares the biggest lessons from the company's success, with growth advice for both product-led and sales-led startups.

Starting Up

25 Hard Questions Every Founder Should Ask Themselves

Startup founders share their go-to questions for taking a pulse check on everything from product strategy to co-founder relationships to their own decision making.

Starting Up

The Uncomfortable Truth: A 3X Founder's Guide to Intellectual Honesty

Crossbeam CEO and co-founder Bob Moore shares his tools for quashing biases in pursuit of the truth at every stage of company building.

Starting Up

The Saboteurs That Threaten Innovation — And How to Handle Them

Steve Blank (of Lean Startup and Four Steps to the Epiphany fame) unpacks why innovators and founders should expect fierce battles from incumbents on the path to disruption.

Finding a startup idea

How to Test A Business Idea: Essential Tools for Validating Before You Launch

If you're an entrepreneur who needs to learn how to validate business ideas effectively, these expert strategies help your startup concept hit the mark.