Library / Articles
29 articles — the best of the best, by category.
Books are the long read. Articles are the sharp one. A curated shelf of the best freely-readable essays for first-time founders — academics like Porter and Levitt, and practitioners like Graham, Altman, Blank, and Ries. Grouped by subject.
29 articles · 4 categories · every link to the original
Strategy & Competition
6 articlesHarvard Business Review · 2008
The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy
by Michael E. Porter
Your real competition is rarely the rival you watch. Porter's five forces show you where profit actually leaks — suppliers, buyers, substitutes, new entrants — so you fight the right battle.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
Harvard Business Review · 1996
What Is Strategy?
by Michael E. Porter
Doing the same things better than rivals is not a strategy — it's a race everyone eventually loses. Porter draws the line between operational effectiveness and a real position worth defending.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
Harvard Business Review · 2015
What Is Disruptive Innovation?
by Clayton M. Christensen
"Disruption" gets used for almost anything now. Christensen sets the record straight — so you can tell whether you're genuinely under an incumbent's radar or just smaller than them.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
Harvard Business Review · 2016
Know Your Customers' “Jobs to Be Done”
by Clayton M. Christensen
People don't buy a product — they “hire” it to do a job. This reframe changes who you think you're competing with, and explains why customers really switch.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
Harvard Business Review · 2004
Blue Ocean Strategy
by W. Chan Kim & Renée Mauborgne
Fighting for share in a crowded market is the hard way to win. The argument for creating a new market with no rivals yet — a counter to the instinct to simply out-feature everyone.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
Above the Crowd · 2012
All Markets Are Not Created Equal
by Bill Gurley
If you're building a marketplace, not every market is worth the effort. Gurley's ten factors tell you early whether the market itself can carry a real business.
Read on Above the Crowd ↗
Marketing & Audience
5 articlesHarvard Business Review · 2004
Marketing Myopia
by Theodore Levitt
The classic that asks: what business are you really in? Founders who answer with their product instead of their customer's need are the ones who get left behind.
Read on Harvard Business Review ↗
kk.org · 2008
1,000 True Fans
by Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly's argument that a creator can earn a living from roughly a thousand devoted fans. A calming, practical reframe for any founder staring at a tiny early audience.
Read on kk.org ↗
andrewchen.com · 2012
Growth Hacker Is the New VP Marketing
by Andrew Chen
The post that named the growth role. Worth reading for how marketing and product stop being separate jobs once distribution becomes the hard part.
Read on andrewchen.com ↗
andrewchen.com · 2013
The Law of Shitty Clickthroughs
by Andrew Chen
Every channel that works today works worse tomorrow, as everyone copies it. Explains why early traction fades — and why you'll always be hunting the next channel.
Read on andrewchen.com ↗
eugenewei.com · 2019
Status as a Service
by Eugene Wei
Wei's case that social networks run on status games as much as on raw utility. A sharp lens for any founder whose product only works once other people show up.
Read on eugenewei.com ↗
Startups & Founders
11 articlespaulgraham.com · 2005
How to Start a Startup
by Paul Graham
The short version of everything: good people, something customers want, spend little. Read it early, then re-read it whenever you feel the work drifting from those three.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
paulgraham.com · 2012
How to Get Startup Ideas
by Paul Graham
The best ideas are noticed, not invented — they look like problems you already have. The cure for the founder who is forcing an idea that nobody asked for.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
paulgraham.com · 2012
Startup = Growth
by Paul Graham
A startup is a company built to grow fast — and that one definition decides almost everything else. Read it to know whether you're building a startup or a small business, and which you actually want.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
paulgraham.com · 2015
Default Alive or Default Dead?
by Paul Graham
One blunt question: if you change nothing, do you reach profitability before the money runs out? The number every founder should be able to answer on the spot.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
playbook.samaltman.com · 2015
Startup Playbook
by Sam Altman
Y Combinator's most generalizable advice in one place: make something a few users love, then figure out growth. A dense, honest map of the first stretch.
Read on playbook.samaltman.com ↗
Y Combinator · 2018
How to Succeed with a Startup
by Sam Altman
Altman's short formula for why startups win — a great idea, team, product, and execution — and what each of those four words actually demands of you.
Read on Y Combinator ↗
blog.samaltman.com · 2020
The Strength of Being Misunderstood
by Sam Altman
Building something new means being doubted for a long time. A steadying read for the stretch when almost no one believes you yet.
Read on blog.samaltman.com ↗
steveblank.com · 2010
No Business Plan Survives First Contact With a Customer
by Steve Blank
A plan is fixed the day you write it; a business model can change. Blank's case for getting out of the building and testing your guesses before you bet the company on them.
Read on steveblank.com ↗
Medium · 2015
7 Rejections
by Brian Chesky
Airbnb's founder posts the actual emails from investors who passed. Proof that early rejection says little about what's possible — keep this one for a hard week.
Read on Medium ↗
Y Combinator · 2016
A Guide to Seed Fundraising
by Geoff Ralston
A plain walkthrough of the first real raise — when to do it, how much, and what the terms mean. The map for founders who have never raised money before.
Read on Y Combinator ↗
First Round Review · 2015
Keith Rabois on the Role of a COO, How to Hire, and Why Transparency Matters
by Keith Rabois
Direct, hard-won advice on hiring well and running a team, from a veteran startup operator and investor. For the founder turning a few people into an organization.
Read on First Round Review ↗
Product & Execution
7 articlesStartup Lessons Learned · 2009
Minimum Viable Product: a guide
by Eric Ries
The post that defined the MVP — and corrects the common misread. It's not about shipping something minimal; it's about learning the most with the least effort.
Read on Startup Lessons Learned ↗
paulgraham.com · 2013
Do Things That Don't Scale
by Paul Graham
Early on, recruiting users by hand and doing unscalable work is the job — not a detour from it. Permission to stop optimizing for scale you don't have yet.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
paulgraham.com · 2009
Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
by Paul Graham
Why a single midday meeting can wreck a building day. Essential for the founder who is both the maker and the manager and can't understand why nothing ships.
Read on paulgraham.com ↗
Joel on Software · 2000
The Joel Test: 12 Steps to Better Code
by Joel Spolsky
Twelve yes-or-no questions that reveal whether a team can actually ship. Old, but the questions still sort a healthy engineering setup from a broken one.
Read on Joel on Software ↗
Joel on Software · 2000
Things You Should Never Do, Part I
by Joel Spolsky
The case against the rewrite-from-scratch — which Spolsky calls the single worst strategic mistake a software company can make. Read this before you throw away working code.
Read on Joel on Software ↗
Silicon Valley Product Group · 2019
Product vs. Feature Teams
by Marty Cagan
The difference between a team handed features to build and a team trusted to solve problems. It quietly decides how much ownership your builders actually have.
Read on Silicon Valley Product Group ↗
Basecamp · 2019
Shape Up
by Ryan Singer
Basecamp's alternative to endless sprints — fixed time, variable scope, six-week cycles. A calmer, more deliberate way to decide what gets built next.
Read on Basecamp ↗