Every early-stage founder should read Paul Graham's essays.

He built Y Combinator, backed 4,000+ startups (Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, etc.), and wrote down everything he learned in essays on his site. Each one is like 10 minutes but covers a specific mistake or pattern he saw founders repeat over and over again.

Here are 8 PG essays I'd recommend to start with:

1. Do Things that Don't Scale
Your first 100 users should come from you personally. Demo, onboard, email one by one. That's the actual job early on
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eBzztMZD

2. How to Get Startup Ideas
The best ideas come from living inside a problem long enough that building the fix becomes obvious. If you need to convince yourself the idea is good, it probably isn't.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/edZUdkBt

3. Startup = Growth
Are you growing 5-7% week over week? yes = startup, no = side project. Only metric that matters early on.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/e93KJ-zx

4. Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
One meeting in the middle of the day wrecks 4 hours of deep work, not 30 minutes. Rearranged my whole week around this.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eCbFzvHW

5. The Top Idea in Your Mind
What you keep thinking about is what you’ll end up optimizing for. Most people don’t control this enough.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/ePapcnzV

6. The Right Kind of Stubborn
Every founder hits a point where they can't tell if they should keep going or walk away. This essay is the best framework I've found for that moment.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eJd3zgXG

7. Keep Your Identity Small
I saw founders who can't kill a feature because it was their idea. Can't drop a market because they already told everyone that's what they do. Your attachment to your own narrative is the thing slowing you down.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/eBFctrk3

8. How to Make Wealth
Many people think startups are about money. They're about leverage - small team, direct link between what you build and the value it creates.
🔗 https://lnkd.in/es3YYH_C

If you’re early-stage, reading these is probably higher leverage than another startup book.

@avlodventures