The Startup Founder Survival Kit

Startups
Founder
Messaging & Positioning
Legal
Developer-First Go-To-Market
Finance
Cap Tables
Product Management
Sales
Billing
Open Source

Launching a startup is complicated. We've collected key resources to help you stay on top of product messaging, pitching, pricing, legal, sales, and many other top founder concerns.

Dig into Decades of Startup Founder Experience

1: Foundational Strategy

Article

Foundational Messaging

One of the most important jobs to be done as a founder is establishing your foundational messaging and positioning. This in-depth guide includes a full template and examples.

Dear Founders: Start with Messaging

Building the messaging framework isn’t a marketing exercise. It’s the act of answering the existential question: Why do we deserve to exist?

Video

Communicating Effectively

Barbara Minto's Pyramid Principle is a game-changer for many organizations. Master the SCQA framework and quickly identify problems and propose solutions across your organization with this in-depth video.

Executive Communication w/ Harrison Metal

Video

Making a Business of Open Source

If your goal is to build a commercial product around an open-source project, watch this video presentation, which covers business models, licensing, pricing & packaging, and other important considerations for founders.

Commercial Open Source Business Strategies

2. Startup Ownership and Funding

Article

Build a Pitch Deck That Works

There's a right way, and a wrong way, to create your pitch deck. Heavybit's veteran investment team covers the best practices to use (and the mistakes to avoid).

How to Build an Effective Pitch Deck

Heavybit’s Partners explain how to build an effective seed-stage pitch deck for devtool startups.

Video

Investor Expectations

What do investors expect of founders? This in-depth video presentation covers the ups and downs of early startup life, including the questions investors will ask of you as a founder, and how you can best prepare for startup life from seed funding onward.

From Seed To Series B

Article

Understanding Cap Tables

Cap tables are a crucial artifact that details ownership for yourself and your investors. This extensive guide walks through equity, dilution, option pools, and how to scale over time.

Founder 101: (Almost) Everything You Need to Know About Cap Table Management

In this post, we asked airCFO’s Director of Financial Advisory some questions about setting up cap table management as an early-stage startup.

3. Building Products Customers Love

Article

Understanding Product Management

Product expert Connie Kwan explains the product needs of a software startup as it matures, and how founders should map product needs to teams.

Kwan’s Hierarchy of Product Needs: The Four Levels of Product Managers

A common dilemma faced by developer company founders is that while CPOs add significantly greater value than junior and senior PMs, they are expensive resources. To successfully navigate this dilemma, let’s break down the various levels of PM in terms of the product needs your business is likely to encounter.

Video

The Product Discovery Journey

This comprehensive video presentation covers the process of finding design partners, specific case studies, creating product briefs, launching successfully, and recognizing failure.

Think like A Customer: Product Discovery Strategies with Datadog

4. Go-To-Market for Early-Stage Startups

Video

Building Your Self-Serve Motion

One of the most efficient ways to go to market is to offer a bottom-up self-serve option that lets developers quickly start using your product. This video presentation covers best practices for self-serve, multiple frameworks, and pitfalls to watch out for.

Building Self-Serve Go-to-Market with Adam Gross

Article

How to Launch an AI Startup

How do you launch an AI startup? You do the same work you would do for any early tech startup--validate product-market fit, craft foundational messaging, and build a community.

How to Launch an AI Startup: Lessons from GitHub Copilot

GTM expert Alyss Noland shares the story behind the GitHub Copilot launch–and important lessons for any early-stage AI startup.

Article

How to Become the First Seller

For early-stage founders, your first sales department is...you. This in-depth guide explains the psychology, first principles, and mechanics of learning to be the first seller on your team.

How to Build a Successful Founder-Led Sales Strategy

Sales expert Walter Roth explains how early-stage founders can step into the role of first seller by applying core engineering principles.

Article

How to Do Testimonials

One of the most powerful drivers of pipeline for your startup is social proof. This guide covers best practices for putting together your company's first case study--what's needed, what to ask for, and what to expect.

How to Craft Your First Customer Case Study

Distilling a customer’s experience into one brief document can seem challenging, but you can streamline the process with a simple case study framework.

5. Business + Financial Planning

Article

Financial Reporting

This in-depth guide includes standard formats for board decks to make your financial reporting process as fast and painless as possible, along with additional templates to use.

How to Generate Financial Reporting for Board Meetings

Finance expert Josh Aharonoff gives a brief overview of how to get a handle on your financial reporting for your next board meeting.

Article

How to Hire a Startup Lawyer

Making the wrong decisions for legal representation can be like technical debt: You accrue problems that become painful and costly to fix later on. This in-depth guide covers what early founders should look for in legal counsel in terms of budget, incorporation, tax issues, and planning for the future.

How To Hire And Work With Lawyers At Your Startup: Advice For Early-Stage Founders From A General Counsel

Here’s what you need to know about hiring legal counsel for raising capital, hiring, and managing IP for your early-stage startup.

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