There are a bunch of great resources on the Internet for people interested in startups. A lot of people have made the journey before and shared their success stories, mistakes, and wisdom. Many of them share freely and I’ve collected some of those below.
Podcasts:
Startups for the Rest of Us is a podcast hosted by two solo software developers who offer advice on the challenges of running a startup by yourself.
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders is the most inspirational thing I’ve ever listened to. Great speakers week after week. I’m sharing my notes as I relisten to each one.
Ebooks:
You can get a free PDF copy of Getting Real which was written by the founders of 37 Signals which is the company behind Basecamp.
Copy Hackers is a site that focuses on the copy that you use on your home page and how that impacts the conversion rate of your visitors into customers. It is a surprisingly large topic.
The Lost Copy Hackers Ebook: Proven Persuasion Strategies is a free book they offer.
Some worksheets you should go through before launching your landing page: Copy Hackers Worksheets.
Nathan Barry has a guide about designing effective forms. What is an effective form? One that gets people to fill it out. You can download the guide for free by…filling out the form at the bottom of this page.
And if you’re looking for some tips on being productive Nathan Barry has a free ebook titled The Productivity Manifesto.
Seth Godin has numerous books available for free that are geared towards entrepreneurship.
Rob Walling (of the Startups for the Rest of Us podcast) has a free ebook on startup marketing that you can get by signing up for his newsletter on his site.
Paul Graham (of Y Combinator and Hacker News) has a collection of essays available that have been widely argued about discussed.
An oldie but a goodie is The Incredible Secret Money Machine by Don Lancaster.
Steve Blank (one of the original forces behind the Lean Startup movement) has a free book available called The Four Steps to the Epiphany.
Once you’ve got your sales page ready you can start to optimize it so that it shows up higher in the Google search results. Google themselves released a guide to help you with that.
Websites:
If you’re doing a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) startup then this is a great blog to read for insights on landing pages, pricing, etc.
Hacker News is a website which features stories, and at times great discussions, on startups, entrepreneurship, technology, etc.