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The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

This book stresses the idea of starting with customer interviews before you build anything and how to ask questions of prospective customers to get meaningful information when people's bias is to just tell you, "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea," even though they'd never pay money for it. I spent a long time trying to apply it, and the struggle was that in my experience, customers who don't mind diving deep into their unsolved problems for an aspiring founder are a disjoint group from customers who have serious money to spend.

My notes: https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/the-mom-test/

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Start Small, Stay Small by Rob Walling

This is a bit dated, but I think it has valuable takeaways. The most important for me was the value in marketing to small niche customers. Big competitors are less interested in catering to niche groups, and the more specialized, the easier they are to find and market to (e.g., they all read the same magazine or attend the same convention).

My notes: https://mtlynch.io/book-reports/start-small-stay-small/

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"Designing the Ideal Bootstrapped Business: Jason Cohen, Founder, WP Engine" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw)

A good recording of a MicroConf talk about useful things to consider when building a new Saas business.