The books, tools, and communities I actually recommend to the founders and teams I work with — the ones that keep coming up.

Some links below are affiliate or referral links. If you buy or sign up through them I may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only list things I've genuinely recommended to people I work with.

Books

The Lean Startup — Eric Ries The build-measure-learn discipline underneath most of what I coach. If you're about to spend six months building before you talk to anyone, read this first.

Traction — Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares The book I recommend most. The Bullseye framework and the nineteen traction channels are what I walk founders through when "we need marketing" isn't a plan yet.

Running Lean — Ash Maurya The practical companion to Lean Startup. This is the one that actually tells you how to run the customer conversations instead of just telling you that you should.

Secrets of Sand Hill Road — Scott Kupor How venture capital actually works, from inside a firm. Read it before your first raise so the term sheet isn't the first time you're learning the vocabulary.

Venture Deals — Brad Feld & Jason Mendelson The one I tell founders to read before they're raising, not while. Term sheets, preferences, control provisions — the mechanics you'll otherwise learn under time pressure with the other side holding the pen.

Rise of the Rest — Steve Case Why the next wave of companies is getting built outside the coasts. Relevant if you're building somewhere people tell you that you shouldn't be.

Tools I actually use

  • Fathom — AI notetaker. Genuinely changed how I run a week of back-to-back calls.
  • Lovable — AI app builder. Fastest path I've found from idea to something clickable.
  • Notion and Obsidian — where thinking goes. Notion for shared, Obsidian for mine.
  • ChartMogul — subscription metrics that don't lie to you.
  • Stripe Atlas and Clerky — incorporation and startup paperwork. Boring, and worth doing properly the first time.

Learning to build with AI

  • Agent Architects — the community I'd point you to if you want to actually build with agents rather than read takes about them. Practitioners, not spectators.
  • Nate's Newsletter — the AI writing I actually keep up with. Signal over hot takes.

Where I send founders

If something here solves a problem you're staring at, that's the point. If you're weighing a technical decision you can't afford to get wrong, reach me at hello@davesacre.com.