Start a business — your AI employee builds it | First Employee

7 min read Original article ↗

Say what the business is. It writes and publishes a real website for it, live in about three minutes — then keeps working on it.

Press Enter, or pick one below.

Free to start. No card.

How it works

How it works

You describe a business. It researches the idea, names the company, writes the pages and puts them live on their own address — then keeps working on that business, and shows you what it did.

  1. 1. You say what the business is One or two sentences in a box. No idea yet? It reads what is public about you and proposes one.
  2. 2. It builds and publishes it It studies the market, names the company, writes the pages and puts them live. Free, about three minutes, watched.
  3. 3. It keeps working on it Improving the pages, going after search traffic, working the queue. Tell it what you want and it starts there.

See one it built ↗ — a company our employee runs for us, not a customer's.

Three minutes later, the site is live

You watch it work. It picks the name, writes the pages, checks each one and publishes it.

The build in progress: a log of finished steps at the top, the phase it is working on, and the four pages it has published so far.
The build, halfway through. Every line is a step that ran.
The published home page of Cleanpricing: navigation, a headline about pricing office cleaning work, and a contact button.
The site it wrote, on its own address. Open it ↗

Cleanpricing is a company we run on the product ourselves, so you can check the work against the pictures. The build is free and the site stays up.

Then it keeps working on it

Publishing a site is the easy part. Getting people to it, and finding an offer they want, takes more than one try.

  • It reads who contacted you The contact form files every enquiry. It reads them, and what those people asked for, before deciding what to work on.
  • It writes for search Every page is checked against our own SEO rules before it goes live. A page that fails them is not published.
  • It rewrites what is not landing If nobody is getting in touch it says so, and changes the offer instead of adding another page.
  • You steer it, and nothing goes out without you Leave it a note and the next block of work starts there. Email, posts, ads and charges wait for your yes; research, drafts and pages happen on their own.
A finished shift report: two pages shipped, what it learned, and one question with two answer buttons.
One block of work, one page: what shipped, what it learned, and the one thing it needs you to decide. Answering is one tap.

And it already knows what it is doing next

Review why the shift ended without logged work and plan next session. Used tonight's budget, so the shift wrapped up here and wrote the report. Everything to this point is receipted.

Cleanpricing — a company our employee runs for us, not a customer. It has worked 8 blocks of work so far, and this was the last one.

See everything it did for that company, and what it has not achieved →

The build is free. How much work it gets through after that is what your plan sets. See the plans →

You can check every step

Every action writes a row: the time, the tool, the result and the model that ran. Rows are appended and never edited.

The receipts page: one shift of rows, each with a time, an action, a result and the model that ran it.
One block of work, in rows. Export it as CSV or JSON whenever you want.

How the ledger works →

What is switched on, and what is not

We would rather tell you what is not ready than let you find out.

  • Take payments on your own Stripe Connect an account in your own name and your site can charge customers. The money goes from your buyer to your bank. We never hold a balance, so there is nothing for us to freeze or cap. Built — switching on as soon as Stripe approves our platform
  • Reply to the people who contact you Your company gets its own inbox, and the contact form files real leads. Your employee drafts the reply and holds it until you say send. Live — drafts wait for your approval
  • Move it to your own domain Start on the address it builds you, and take the site to a domain you own whenever you want. We run a registrar, so we do it at cost. On request
  • Put the business on a phone Installs to a home screen with your mark as the icon, opens full screen, works offline. A store listing needs a developer account in your name — not yet. Live — no store, no fee
  • Run ads and outbound, once you allow it On the managed plan we run the growth side with you, on an ad account you own, so the pixel and the history stay yours if you leave. Managed plan — we set it up with you, not a self-serve switch yet
  • Sell products from the site It writes pages that say what you sell and take an enquiry. There is no catalogue, no basket and no checkout, so it cannot take an order for you. Not built yet
  • Take over a site you already have Today it starts a new one. Tell it what your business does and it works from that. Not built yet

You keep custody of your money

We are not free either: the managed plan takes 15% of what your company earns, and 15% to run your ads. What we do not do is hold your money. Your customer pays into your own Stripe account and Stripe settles our share at the transaction, so there is no holding period and no withdrawal cap here.

Read their terms, then read ours →

Questions

What do I get for free?

The build. It names the company, writes a multi-page site with a working contact form, and puts it live on its own address in about three minutes. That site stays up. The work that comes after is what a plan buys.

What exactly is a shift?

One block of work. Your employee reads where the company stands, picks up whatever you left it, does the work, writes you a report, and lines up what it wants to do next. How many it gets through is what your plan sets.

How do I know it actually did the work?

Every action writes a receipt: the tool it used, what changed, which model ran, how long it took, and a link to what it produced. The ledger is append-only and you can export it as CSV or JSON.

Can it spend my money or email people without asking?

No. Sending email, posting publicly, running ads and charging a customer are all held for your approval. Reversible work happens on its own.

Do you take a percentage of my revenue?

On self-managed, no — the monthly price and nothing else. On managed we take 15% of what the company earns and 15% to run your ads. What we never do on either plan is hold your money: your customer pays into your own Stripe account and Stripe settles our share at the transaction, which is why there is no holding period and no withdrawal cap here.

Do I own what it makes?

Yes — the pages, the copy, the domain and the data. Export the whole thing whenever you want. We do not train models on your business.

Hire your first employee

The build is free and takes about three minutes. No waitlist, no demo call.

Build mine now

See the plans →