Sorry, I didn't answer the first question you asked. I don't have a guide to link to, but my general guidelines for myself: Curiosity always, Validation, Mark

Sorry, I didn't answer the first question you asked. I don't have a guide to link to, but my general guidelines for myself: Curiosity always, Validation, Market, Team, Mockup, Validation, Market, Sales Commitments, Build Team, MVP, Actual Sales, Iteration. In the early stage this is what a fledgling startup looks like to me. Curiosity around ideas, always asking questions and this should never stop ever. Validation of ideas once you feel you have found one or more. Validation is done by talking to real human beings who would be the potential target clients, Market is the market opportunity research and the targeting. Team may come right after market or may wait, but either way who are the people you will need to make it happen. Mockup is a simple PDF or wireframe mockup, not even code likely at this point. Validation again on the Mockup and market. Redefine the market and or product. Start getting sales commitments at this point, build out the team and the MVP and move into sales. Then you start iterating on Product and sales. Of course, this is a gross overview, a ton of little steps go into all this, but for me this is how you start any basic business, regardless if you want to raise money or just be successful. It starts with Idea/Clients, then you start figuring out product. When I used to help startups a lot as my consulting clients this was almost always universally failed. They'd come with a product idea but almost 0 market validation or testing, so who knows what would work. Now, there are some greenfield projects where there just isn't a market because you are defining it, but that is the rarity and generally is started and funded differently IME.