Tools, templates & communities
A short list of resources we either use, have used, or have seen used well by founders we trust. None of these are affiliate links. If something stops being good, it gets removed.
Tools we keep coming back to
Development & No-Code
Vercel
Push to a Git repo, your site is live. The default for Next.js, React, and static sites; the free tier is enough for almost any pre-revenue project.
vercel.com →Supabase
Postgres, auth, storage, and a usable dashboard, all behind one SDK. The shortest path from “idea” to “multi-user web app with login.”
supabase.com →Cursor
VS Code fork with AI coding built in. For solo and small-team founders shipping code without a full engineering team, the productivity gain is real.
cursor.com →Design & Branding
Analytics & Marketing
Plausible
Lightweight, cookie-less analytics that shows you the five numbers you actually look at. The single screen you’ll open every morning.
plausible.io →PostHog
When Plausible isn’t enough — funnels, session replay, feature flags — this is the next stop. Generous free tier, open source.
posthog.com →Productivity & Collaboration
Linear
Issue tracking that doesn’t feel like enterprise software. The keyboard-first design is the kind of small detail that compounds across thousands of tickets.
linear.app →Templates worth not writing from scratch
All free, all from sources that are widely used in real fundraises. Read these before you pay a lawyer to draft something from zero.
Y Combinator SAFE Agreement
Standard fundraising documents for early-stage startups. Multiple versions available.
Download Template →Pitch Deck Templates (Sequoia)
Proven pitch deck structure from one of the world's leading VCs.
View Guide →Financial Model Templates
Christoph Janz’s free SaaS Financial Plan 2.0 spreadsheet: revenue forecast, unit economics, and hiring plan in one model.
Download Template →Founder Agreement Template (Carta)
Equity splits, vesting schedules, and founder terms. Free legal templates.
Get Template →Where founders actually hang out
Twitter/X is unreliable; LinkedIn is mostly performance. These places still have real conversations between people building real things.
Product Hunt
Discover and launch new products. Daily leaderboard of the best launches.
Browse Products →Startup School (YC)
Free online course with founder community and office hours.
Free access
Join Program →Investor research
Before any outreach, you need a target list. These are the databases founders actually use to build one — including the free tiers, which are enough at pre-seed and seed.
Crunchbase
Comprehensive database of companies, investors, and funding rounds. Track competitors and identify potential investors.
crunchbase.com →AngelList
Syndicates, rolling funds, and fund infrastructure; useful for finding angels who invest through syndicates. (Its former jobs product is now Wellfound.)
angellist.com →Signal by NFX
Free investor search by stage, sector, and check size, with the investors’ own profiles and portfolio companies.
signal.nfx.com →OpenVC
Free directory of VC funds and angels with their stated theses, stages, and how they prefer to receive decks.
openvc.app →