Startup Field Guide

The Startup Field Guide is a tactical resource with 100+ articles, case studies, interviews, and tools to support early-stage founders from insight to product-market fit.

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Featured Article

Customer discovery

Defining your ICP can help you better identify customer needs, clarify priorities for your team, and pursue opportunities for expansion down the lineDefining your ICP can help you better identify customer needs, clarify priorities for your team, and pursue opportunities for expansion down the line

What is an ideal customer profile?

Defining your ICP can help you better identify customer needs, clarify priorities for your team, and pursue opportunities for expansion down the line

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Featured Tool

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Demystifying SaaS, go-to-market, VC, and more ‍ Learn about terminology in enterprise and consumer product development, fundraising, go-to-market strategy, and more — written in plain English.Demystifying SaaS, go-to-market, VC, and more ‍ Learn about terminology in enterprise and consumer product development, fundraising, go-to-market strategy, and more — written in plain English.

Startup Glossary

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Contributors from Team Unusual

John Vrionis

John Vrionis

Co-Founder & Managing Partner

Investments
Jyoti Bansal

Jyoti Bansal

Co-Founder & Entrepreneur Partner

Founder
Sandhya Hegde

Sandhya Hegde

General Partner

Investments
Lars Albright

Lars Albright

General Partner

Founder
Sarah Leary

Sarah Leary

Venture Partner

Founder

Featured insights and interviews

Trending articles and blog posts

Learn how a rigorous customer discovery playbook can help founders save time and moneyLearn how a rigorous customer discovery playbook can help founders save time and money

Article

Here’s why founders should do customer discovery

Blog
Harness founder and CEO, Jyoti Bansal, provides a deeper look into his customer discovery processHarness founder and CEO, Jyoti Bansal, provides a deeper look into his customer discovery process

Podcast

How Harness found product-market fit: Jyoti Bansal on striking gold with customer discovery

Blog

This is what AI builders should know about data protection and privacy

Blog
The cost of developing with OpenAI just dropped 90%, but there are two other consequences that are potentially even more impactful.The cost of developing with OpenAI just dropped 90%, but there are two other consequences that are potentially even more impactful.

The ChatGPT API changes the game

Blog
This article provides a step-by-step guide for how founders can validate their idea and kickstart the validation process with early customers and design partners.This article provides a step-by-step guide for how founders can validate their idea and kickstart the validation process with early customers and design partners.

Customer discovery

Customer validation: Going from idea to sellable product

Article
Learn about Webflow's early days in this case study and how the company became a leader in the no-code space.Learn about Webflow's early days in this case study and how the company became a leader in the no-code space.

Product-led growth

How Webflow found product-market fit

Article
Learn how to develop customers in open-source software projects, with insights from leaders of Sysdig, Heptio, Styra, and more.Learn how to develop customers in open-source software projects, with insights from leaders of Sysdig, Heptio, Styra, and more.

Open source

Developing open-source software customers

Article
In part 1, learn about the critical steps to starting an open-source software company, including primary approaches and what to look for in a co-founder.In part 1, learn about the critical steps to starting an open-source software company, including primary approaches and what to look for in a co-founder.

Open source

Starting an open source company

Article

What our readers say about the Field Guide

Brian Regan
Brian Regan
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The @Unusual_VC field guide is an awesome resource for anyone who wants to start their own software company.Everything from hiring, product, sales, and fundraising all in one place.

https://t.co/BVmbOCXkXv

Paul Odeon
Paul Odeon
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Awesome resource on starting a startup:

https://t.co/YTXhA42l4J

brryant
brryant
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story telling + useful content + amazing visuals. @Unusual_VC 's new website has it all!

https://t.co/VJdV6F54d4

Jonathan Reimer
Jonathan Reimer
jonathimer
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I stumbled across this article by @Unusual_VC and its a pretty comprehensive guide for everyone looking into starting an OSS company‍

https://t.co/N42ci1rSZ1

George from 🕹 prodmgmt.world
George from 🕹 prodmgmt.world
nurijanian
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1/ Unusual VC’s 4 Important ListsUse for B2BSimple framework to align cross-functionally.Whatever you decide to build falls into one of four categories:• Help sales win new customers • Keep existing customers happy • Manage technical debt• Technology for growth

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Elias Mufarech
Elias Mufarech
eliasmufa
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Resources VCs share are very powerful. For example, this product-led growth guide from @Unusual_VC"PLG works well for problems that are either decentralized or parallelized"... which essentially means a company or team is using different tools to solve the same pain point.https://field-guide.unusual.vc/field-guide-enterprise/introduction-to-plg#Whatisproductledgrowth

Stephanie Horbaczewski
Stephanie Horbaczewski
iamsteph
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Clients need to be bleeding 🩸 so true @Unusual_VC

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Phil Vander Broek
Phil Vander Broek
philvb
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When starting @doptcom, @Unusual_VC's Field Guide was the best resource I found on how to start a company.

@sandhya, @jvrionis, and @jyotibansalsf recently distilled the most important parts into a short convo. I can't recommend this enough.

Justin Dorfman
Justin Dorfman
justindorfman87
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Great qualifying insight from @Unusual_VC Field Guide. I’ve been digging through this gold mine of a resource for the last couple weeks. Highly recommend it for all SaaS founders https://field-guide.unusual.vc

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chris daniels
chris daniels
chris_daniels27
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@Unusual_VC's "Field Guide" is probably the best content series I've found on Go-to-Market strategies for both B2B and B2C.

They have more content around startup fundraising, leadership, hiring, etc.

Really quality stuff 🙌

#MiamiTech, #buildinpublic

‍https://unusual.vc/field-guide

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