# All of our Finding a startup idea articles

[**Go Deep to Build Fast: A Research Thinking Toolkit to Speed Up the Discovery Phase**](https://review.firstround.com/a-research-toolkit-for-the-discovery-phase/)  
UX research expert Jeanette Mellinger shares a toolkit for deeper discovery of your customers, your team and yourself.

[**EvolutionIQ Just Got Acquired for $730M — Here's Their Playbook For Building an Enduring AI Business**](https://review.firstround.com/evolutioniq-path-to-pmf/)  
We sat down with the founding team for the inside story of one of the first major vertical AI exits.

[**The 30 Best Pieces of Company Building Advice We Heard in 2024**](https://review.firstround.com/the-30-best-pieces-of-company-building-advice-we-heard-in-2024/)  
For the 12th year in a row, we rounded up 30 timeless company-building insights we published from the year before.

[**The Uncomfortable Truth: A 3X Founder's Guide to Intellectual Honesty**](https://review.firstround.com/the-uncomfortable-truth-a-3x-founders-guide-to-intellectual-honesty/)  
Crossbeam CEO and co-founder Bob Moore shares his tools for quashing biases in pursuit of the truth at every stage of company building.

[**Replit’s Path to Product-Market Fit — The $1 Billion Side Project**](https://review.firstround.com/replits-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
Sometimes the signals of product-market fit are so strong, they can no longer be ignored. In the latest installment of our Paths to Product-Market Fit series, Amjad Masad takes us on Replit's unconventional journey from college side project to billion-dollar AI startup.

[**How to Test A Business Idea: Essential Tools for Validating Before You Launch**](https://review.firstround.com/how-to-test-a-business-idea-essential-tools-for-validating-before-you-launch/)  
If you're an entrepreneur who needs to learn how to validate business ideas effectively, these expert strategies help your startup concept hit the mark.

[**GOAT’s Path to Product-Market Fit — How a Fake Sneaker Sparked a $4B Idea**](https://review.firstround.com/goats-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
GOAT co-founder and CEO Eddy Lu sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson to tell the story of how a decade of middling entrepreneurial ideas finally culminated in the $4B idea for a sneaker marketplace.

[**Shippo’s Path to Product-Market Fit — The Upside of Being Industry Outsiders**](https://review.firstround.com/shippos-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
Shippo co-founder and CEO Laura Behrens Wu sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson for a behind-the-scenes look at how she leveraged industry outsider and first-time founder status to build a billion-dollar shipping company.

[**Merge’s Path to Product-Market Fit — The Importance of Founder-led Sales (Even for a Self-Serve Product)**](https://review.firstround.com/merges-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
Merge founder and CEO Shensi Ding sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson for a behind-the-scenes look at how she and co-founder Gil Feig built and scaled a product that solved the painful headache of building and maintaining integrations.

[**Vanta's Path to Product-Market Fit — Solve the Customer’s Problem, Then Write Code**](https://review.firstround.com/vantas-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
An inside look at all the unconventional moves in Vanta's first few years — from creating a new category to signing the first 600 customers without a proper website.

[**Productboard’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Building a Unicorn Company with Lean Startup Principles**](https://review.firstround.com/productboards-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
Productboard's founder and CEO Hubert Palan sits down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson for a sweeping look at how he used Steve Blank's principles to build a product that tackled his own pain points as a product manager.

[**Material Security’s Path to Product-Market Fit — Find Your Winning Idea by Selling Products That Don’t Exist Yet**](https://review.firstround.com/material-securitys-path-to-product-market-fit/)  
Material Security co-founders Ryan Noon and Abhishek Agrawal sit down with First Round Partner Todd Jackson to explain how they whittled 25 startup ideas down to 4 and then used a pre-selling technique to find their winning idea.