Copy of Blank page

Founder Friend Community Resources

Startup Reads

By Anna Lazitskaya, CEO and cofounder of Embraceme. Supporting those in need like herself.

April 9, 2025

The Founder Friend is community for entrepreneurs support by Embraceme
join by dropping me a line at
anna @ embraceme . app

Hey there! I’m Anna👋
Will be happy to connect Anna Lazitskaya – Embraceme AI | LinkedIn
I’m building Embraceme, a grief tech app where people can truly connect and learn to build their own tribe IRL.

Went from making mobile apps and SaaSes successful to now focusing on making people feel less alone as they grieve and go through losses.
Therapy nerd, AI educator at times and podcaster (Embraceme pod in the making).
Love sunsets, authentic difficult conversations and road trips.

Recommendations

Reads 2024 (the updated 2025 is coming)

Dan Shipper this year writes about AI, is building a media company and product studio around it, and runs a YouTube channel about how top minds are using AI. He is an early investor in Arc, so I assume the media comes from there.
https://every.to/@danshipper
Nicholas Thompson, CEO of Anthropic. Profitable media, which is rare. His The Most Interesting Thing in Tech on LinkedIn and his rare link collections there are a real gem.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/some-interesting-things-read-third-weekend-october-nicholas-thompson-ahabe
I'm reading Alexis Ohanian on LinkedIn. His latest interview with Simon Sinek was golden for me. It’s about values and strategy, about what’s important.
https://simonsinek.com/podcast/episodes/alexis-ohanian-why-i-left-reddit-and-why-greed-can-inspire-good/

Startups 101 book recommendation
Radical Candor https://www.amazon.pl/Radical-Candor-What-Want-Saying/dp/1529038340
Blog https://www.radicalcandor.com/

Resources

Part 1. Basics

Lean Customer Development The complete guide to customer development
UX for Lean Startup Design Qualitative Validation

Part 2. Validation

Running Lean Building a sustainable business model - core interview types
Design Sprint — book and resources (love the interview scripts they offer)

Part 3. How-to cust dev

26 Resources to Help You Master Customer Development Interviews Hacks and tricks
Top tips to get started with user research List of must-reads
Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems: Krug, Steve User Interviews/UX interviews for product people and everyone else

Part 4. The bible

Customer Development Theory The whole “Get out of the building” theory by Steve Blank

Part 5. Other resources

Startup School by Y Combinator (best/first accelerator) https://www.startupschool.org/
The Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps - 4th Edition | Andreessen Horowitz

The Founder Friend is community for entrepreneurs support by Embraceme
join by dropping me a line at
anna @ embraceme . app