Books, videos, skeletons that compound.
Curated reading and watching for founders and investors — plus interactive workbooks and battle-tested document skeletons. Six sections, nine items each, more behind every “view all”.
Featured workbooks
2 live · more comingFillable exercises — answers persist locally, you can come back and continue.
Daily Coffee with Startup Fundraising
Based on Sarthak Ahuja's book · 12 chapters · 22 exercisesWalk through a complete fundraise applied to your startup — from "do I even need to raise?" to closing, with India-specific tax, ESOP, and legal frameworks.
Open workbook →Workbook · FoundersZero to One
Based on Peter Thiel & Blake Masters · 12 chapters · 18 exercisesApply Thiel's monopoly thesis, the seven questions, and the power-law lens to your own startup. Built for founders thinking about category, moat, and durable advantage.
Open workbook →Books — for founders
9 of 30+ in the canonEach entry: one-line summary, Amazon search, Google Books search.
Zero to One
Peter Thiel & Blake Masters · 2014The case for monopoly, the seven questions every business must answer, and the power-law lens. A short, sharp manifesto on creating new things instead of competing on old ones.
Daily Coffee with Startup Fundraising
Sarthak Ahuja · 2024India-specific fundraising fundamentals — bite-sized chapters covering valuation, term sheets, ESOPs, due diligence, and cap-table mechanics. Written by an Indian CA who's lived this in the field.
The Lean Startup
Eric Ries · 2011Build–measure–learn loops, validated learning, and the minimum viable product. The vocabulary every modern startup uses, made rigorous and operational.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz · 2014What founders actually do when things go wrong — layoffs, executive firings, near-bankruptcy. The chapter on titles alone is worth the price.
Traction
Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares · 2015The bullseye framework for finding your first growth channel. Nineteen channels, one decision tree, and a discipline for testing them in cycles.
Venture Deals
Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson · 6th ed.Term-sheet anatomy, control vs. economics, and how to actually read a deal. The standard reference for first-time fundraisers and first-time leads alike.
Founders at Work
Jessica Livingston · 2007Long-form interviews with the founders of PayPal, Apple, Hotmail, Adobe, Lotus, and 27 others. Pattern-recognition gold for what actually happens at year zero.
Crossing the Chasm
Geoffrey A. Moore · 1991Why early adopters don't predict mainstream — and how to design GTM so the hand-off works. Old book, still painfully relevant for technology marketers.
The Mom Test
Rob Fitzpatrick · 2013How to talk to customers without lying to yourself. Short, mostly script. The cheapest investment you'll make in product judgment.
Books — for investors
9 of 25+ on the syllabusFor partners, principals, angels, and syndicate leads writing their first cheques.
Secrets of Sand Hill Road
Scott Kupor · 2019How VC actually works — fund mechanics, term sheets, board dynamics — written by a managing partner at a16z. The first book to give to a new associate.
The Power Law
Sebastian Mallaby · 2022The history of venture capital from Arthur Rock through Sequoia and Tiger. Required reading on how the industry actually formed and what its returns really look like.
Angel
Jason Calacanis · 2017An operator's playbook for angel investing — picking founders, sizing cheques, managing follow-ons, and handling the failures. Honest about loss rates.
Venture Deals
Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson · 6th ed.The other side of the table. Required for anyone leading a round — the clauses you'll defend, the ones you'll concede, and the ones that aren't worth fighting over.
Zero to One
Peter Thiel & Blake MastersThe investor lens on monopoly thesis, definite vs. indefinite optimism, and last-mover advantage. Read it after the founder lens for a different view of the same chapters.
The Business of Venture Capital
Mahendra Ramsinghani · 4th ed.The textbook. Fund formation, LP relationships, allocation discipline, and the institutional mechanics most founders never see — and many GPs underestimate.
Pitch Anything
Oren Klaff · 2011How to read (and counter) a pitch using neuroscience-informed frame control. Useful on both sides — investors evaluating, founders being evaluated.
Antifragile
Nassim Nicholas Taleb · 2012Things that gain from disorder. Investors apply this to portfolio construction — convex bets, optionality, the mathematics of barbell strategies.
The Innovator's Dilemma
Clayton M. Christensen · 1997Why great companies fail. The disruption framework that taught a generation of investors what to look for in incumbents-versus-insurgents.
Skeletons
9 templates · battle-testedReusable structures for the documents every founder ships. Each is a starting point — copy, adapt, ship.
10-slide seed deck
Slide-by-slide outline · ~280 words totalTitle · Problem · Solution · Why now · Market · Product · Traction · Business model · Team · Ask. Word counts and what each slide must do.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · One-pagerInvestor one-pager
280 words · 5 sections · forwardableThe doc that gets your deck opened. Headline, problem, solution, traction, ask — sized so an angel can forward it with a one-line endorsement.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · PRDProduct requirements document
8 sections · 2-page max for v1 featuresProblem statement, user, success metric, scope, non-scope, design, rollout, risks. The PRD shape engineers actually want to read.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · MVP scopeMVP scope & cut-list
Build · won't-build · success criteriaThe most-cut document on every product team. What's in v1, what's explicitly excluded, what proves the MVP worked, what triggers a kill.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · Finance5-tab financial model
Drivers · Revenue · Costs · P&L · ScenariosThe structure investors expect. One drivers tab feeds everything; revenue built bottom-up; three scenarios you can defend.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · Cap tableCap table
Founders · ESOP · rounds · fully-dilutedOne spreadsheet, one tab per round, fully-diluted at the bottom. The layout that gets your cap table out of diligence in 24 hours.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · UpdateMonthly investor update
5 sections · ~400 words · email-readyTL;DR · Numbers · Shipped · Hard · Asks. The 1-hour-a-month discipline that builds the relationship with your future Series A lead.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · InterviewCustomer discovery script
Mom-Test friendly · 30-min structureOpen with their world, dig into specific moments, never pitch. The script that surfaces real signal instead of polite agreement.
Open skeleton →Skeleton · LegalCo-founder agreement
Equity · vesting · IP · departureThe pre-incorporation conversation in a template. Equity split rationale, vesting, IP assignment, decision rights, departure clauses.
Open skeleton →YouTube channels
9 of 50+ subscribedQuick-reference videos and long-form lectures we keep rewatching.
CA Sarthak Ahuja
Daily clips on Indian startup fundraising, valuations, taxesThe author of Daily Coffee with Startup Fundraising — short, sharp explainers on cap tables, ESOPs, term sheets, and Indian regulatory nuance.
Open channel ↗YouTube · FoundersY Combinator
Office hours, Startup School, alumni demosStartup School alone — Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Brian Chesky, Patrick Collison — is one of the great free MBAs.
Open channel ↗YouTube · BothAndreessen Horowitz (a16z)
Founder podcasts, market analysis, deep dives16-Minute and a16z Live are great cliff-notes; the long-form interviews go deep into specific verticals.
Open channel ↗YouTube · FoundersStartup Grind
Fireside chats with operators & investorsLong-form interviews — the Travis Kalanick and Ben Horowitz sessions are still in our top-10.
Open channel ↗YouTube · FoundersLenny's Podcast
Product, growth, and career deep-divesLenny Rachitsky's interviews with Stripe, Airbnb, Linear, Notion, and Figma operators on how the work actually gets done.
Open channel ↗YouTube · InvestorsThe 20VC — Harry Stebbings
VC interviews, fund mechanics, founder & LP perspectivesDaily-cadence interviews with active GPs. The episodes with Bill Gurley, Doug Leone, and Brad Gerstner are essential listening.
Open channel ↗YouTube · BothAll-In Podcast
Chamath, Jason, Sacks, Friedberg — weeklyLoud, opinionated, often right. The macro / market segments are a useful weekly check on what investors are talking about.
Open channel ↗YouTube · IndiaTiE Bangalore
Indian founder & investor sessionsSessions with founders of Razorpay, Zerodha, Freshworks, Postman, and the rest of the Indian startup canon.
Open channel ↗YouTube · FoundersThis Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis · live founder pitches & angel diligenceWatch real angels run real diligence in real time. The "Founder University" segments are excellent for first-time founders.
Open channel ↗Podcasts
9 of 25+ regularsAcquired
Ben Gilbert & David RosenthalLong-form (4-hour) deep dives on company history. Their Nvidia, TSMC, and Sony episodes are bingeworthy strategy lessons.
How I Built This
Guy Raz · NPROrigin stories from Spanx, Reddit, Patagonia, Five Guys, and 400 others. Great commute listening for first-time founders.
The Twenty Minute VC
Harry StebbingsSame as the YouTube — ranked separately because the audio-only fund-mechanics episodes are gold for new GPs.
Invest Like the Best
Patrick O'ShaughnessyLong, unhurried interviews with public-market and venture investors. The episodes with Tobi Lütke and Daniel Ek are foundational.
The Tim Ferriss Show
Tim FerrissOperating frameworks, deep work habits, and unusual founder interviews. The Naval Ravikant and Marc Andreessen episodes are classics.
Masters of Scale
Reid HoffmanReid Hoffman tests counter-intuitive theses — "do things that don't scale", "fire fast, hire slow" — against the founders who lived them.
The Knowledge Project
Shane Parrish · Farnam StreetDecision making, mental models, and second-order thinking. Less startup-flavoured, more useful for the long-haul founder mind.
Indie Hackers
Courtland AllenFor founders not raising, or raising small. Real revenue numbers from solo / 2-person startups making $10K – $1M ARR.
The SaaStr Podcast
Jason LemkinSaaS metrics, sales playbooks, scaling from $1M to $100M ARR. The CRO-track episodes are required for first-time SaaS founders.
Newsletters
9 of 30+ on the listLenny's Newsletter
Lenny Rachitsky · weeklyThe product / growth canon for the next decade. Read the archive — anything pre-2023 is now table stakes.
Stratechery
Ben Thompson · dailyAggregation theory and the modern technology business model. Paid, but the once-a-week free post is enough to start.
Not Boring
Packy McCormick · weeklyLong-form deep dives on companies, sectors, and ideas. Expect 8,000-word essays you'll actually want to read.
The Ken — Tech
Daily, paidThe best long-form journalism on the Indian startup ecosystem. Cancel one subscription somewhere else, take this one.
Benedict Evans
Ben Evans · weekly + occasional decksGlobal tech analysis with a focus on platform shifts. The annual State-of-Tech presentation is the single best yearly read.
The Generalist
Mario Gabriele · weeklyDeep dives on emerging companies, fund managers, and movements. More analyst-grade than blog-grade — pay for the archive.
Newcomer
Eric Newcomer · 3× weeklyThe reporter's notebook on what's actually happening inside venture capital. Required for anyone trying to understand fund dynamics.
CB Insights
Daily, free + paidFunding data and market reports. The free daily covers funding rounds globally; the paid platform is the analyst desk for VCs.
Crunchbase Daily
Daily, freeThe most-read funding-news email in venture. Read it for 3 minutes a day; you'll know what closed and where capital moved.
Found a resource we should add?
The library is a public list. If something's missing — book, channel, podcast, skeleton — send it our way and we'll review.