# StartupBuilder

URL: /code/builders/startup · Id: `product:startup-builder`

> StartupBuilder turns an Idea into an operating Startup with SiteBuilder, SoftwareBuilder, ServiceBuilder, and SalesBuilder.

StartupBuilder turns an [Idea](/business/nouns/idea) into a running [Startup](/business/nouns/startup). The Startup is one definition: [api.sb](/code/platform/api-sb) serves it, [Agents](/business/nouns/agent) operate it, and its owners steer it.

StartupBuilder

## What it does
StartupBuilder holds the Startup's definition and directs the four other [Builders](/business/nouns/builder) that build its parts. All five share one set of records. A [Price](/business/nouns/price) changed once is the price on the [Site](/business/nouns/site), in the API, and on the next [Invoice](/business/nouns/invoice).

A new Startup starts from a [Startup Template](/business/nouns/startup-template): an [operating model](/agents/operating-model), one or more [Product Templates](/business/nouns/product-template), and the [Motions](/business/nouns/motion) they sell through. It arrives complete, with a [Brand](/business/nouns/brand), [Offers](/business/nouns/offer), a Site, every [System](/business/nouns/system) on shared data, and an Agent seated in each [Role](/business/nouns/role).

StartupBuilder then runs it through its [Lifecycle](/business/nouns/lifecycle), from Idea to Live and on to Scale. [Processes](/business/nouns/process) wake on [Events](/business/nouns/event), and every [Action](/business/nouns/action) records who acted, for whom, and under which [Mandate](/business/nouns/mandate). Any [Change](/business/nouns/change) can run as an [Experiment](/business/nouns/experiment), and a [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) runs the same machinery across a [Portfolio](/business/nouns/portfolio).

## Built from
- [SiteBuilder](/code/builders/site)
- [SoftwareBuilder](/code/builders/software)
- [ServiceBuilder](/code/builders/service)
- [SalesBuilder](/code/builders/sales)
- [api.sb](/code/platform/api-sb)

## Surfaces
Three [Apps](/business/nouns/app) run StartupBuilder:

- startups.studio is where founders and operators build and run Startups, from one Startup to a whole Portfolio.
- [startups.new](/start/startups-new) creates a Startup from one sentence and opens it in startups.studio.
- startup.games shows a founder's progress as quests and streaks.

Four [Interfaces](/business/nouns/interface) reach the same [Verbs](/business/nouns/verb) under the same names: the [API](/code/api), [SDK](/code/sdk), [CLI](/code/cli), and [MCP](/code/mcp). One command scaffolds a Startup as a project ([details](/code/create-startups)):

```bash
npm create startups
```

## Next steps
- [Vision](/code/builders/startup/vision): why a business runs as a program.
- [The Startup as code](/code/builders/startup/business-as-code): the model every definition is written in.
- [What every call returns](/code/builders/startup/actions-and-modes): statuses, reasons, and the three ways to call.
- [What a Startup sells](/products/four-kinds): four kinds, who supplies them, and how each earns.
- [Operating models](/agents/operating-model): what changes as humans join.
- [Principles](/code/builders/startup/principles): seven rules the platform enforces.

Everything StartupBuilder covers, generated from the registry:

| Term | Kind | Definition |
| --- | --- | --- |
| [StartupBuilder](/code/builders/startup) | Product | StartupBuilder turns an Idea into an operating Startup with SiteBuilder, SoftwareBuilder, ServiceBuilder, and SalesBuilder. |
| [startups.new](/start/startups-new) | Product | startups.new creates a Startup from one sentence and opens it in startups.studio. |
| [Founding Team](/agents/founding) | Team | The Founding Team decides what the Startup pursues: its Idea, its strategy, its Goals, and every call escalated to it. |
| [Legal Team](/agents/legal) | Team | The Legal Team keeps the Startup lawful: Agreements, privacy and Consent from day one, screening of every Offer, and every Reserved Act. |
| [People Team](/agents/people) | Team | The People Team staffs every Role: it names an Agent for each one, recruits the Humans the law or the Startup needs, and pays them. |
| [Product Team](/agents/product) | Team | The Product Team decides what gets built and why: Product definitions, list Prices and packaging, the build list, and the Site’s Pages for each ICP. |
| [Quality Team](/agents/quality) | Team | The Quality Team checks all work: the checks inside each Process, every outbound Message, and every money move, with verdicts, never Approvals. |
| [Building](/business/lifecycle/states/building) | Lifecycle state | Building is the state of a Startup whose Agents build its Brand, Products, Offers, site, API, and MCP server from its template. |
| [Dormant](/business/lifecycle/states/dormant) | Lifecycle state | Dormant is the state of a Startup with no work running on it, whose records, site, and domain stay kept until it returns to Live. |
| [Graduate](/business/lifecycle/states/graduate) | Lifecycle state | Graduate is the state of a Startup that leaves its studio for a company of its own, keeping its Brand, Customers, and records. |
| [Hold](/business/lifecycle/states/hold) | Lifecycle state | Hold is the state of a Startup that keeps operating and serving Customers while its owner adds no new investment. |
| [Idea](/business/lifecycle/states/idea) | Lifecycle state | Idea is the state of a Startup that states its Idea and who pays, before any build work starts. |
| [Live](/business/lifecycle/states/live) | Lifecycle state | Live is the state of a Startup that is publicly reachable and takes money from Customers for at least one Offer. |
| [Scale](/business/lifecycle/states/scale) | Lifecycle state | Scale is the state of a Startup that compounds: Customers stay and expand, demand comes from several sources, and margins hold. |
| [Sell](/business/lifecycle/states/sell) | Lifecycle state | Sell is the state of a Startup whose owner has agreed to sell it, with its Brand, domain, Customers, and records. |
| [Agent-run services firm](/start/templates/agent-run-services) | Startup Template | An Agent-run services firm runs with no humans and sells warranted outcomes as Services-as-Software, with the Agent behind them for hire. |
| [Autonomous agent business](/start/templates/autonomous-agent) | Startup Template | An Autonomous agent business runs with no humans and sells Agent as a Service to businesses, people, and other Agents. |
| [Autonomous data API](/start/templates/autonomous-data-api) | Startup Template | An Autonomous data API runs with no humans and sells a Dataset API and Headless SaaS to developers and their Agents. |
| [Autonomous directory](/start/templates/autonomous-directory) | Startup Template | An Autonomous directory runs with no humans and sells listings in a Directory to Organizations that want buyers and Agents to find them. |
| [Autonomous storefront](/start/templates/autonomous-storefront) | Startup Template | An Autonomous storefront runs with no humans and sells physical goods as a Dropship store to people and the Agents that shop for them. |
| [Founder-led marketplace](/start/templates/founder-marketplace) | Startup Template | A Founder-led marketplace has one Human founder who signs for a Marketplace, while Agents recruit Suppliers and serve buyers. |
| [Licensed professional network](/start/templates/licensed-network) | Startup Template | A Licensed professional network extends the Founder-led marketplace into a Licensed-human marketplace that buyers and their Agents book. |
| [Managed service firm](/start/templates/managed-service-firm) | Startup Template | A Managed service firm extends the Agent-run services firm with Humans who share Roles and an E2E managed service for businesses. |
| [Solo SaaS](/start/templates/solo-saas) | Startup Template | A Solo SaaS has one Human founder and Agents in every other Role, selling SaaS and its Headless SaaS to businesses and people. |
| [Autonomous](/agents/operating-models/autonomous) | Operating model | Autonomous is the operating model with no humans: Agents fill every Role, and one-way decisions wait out a delay window before they proceed. |
| [Multi-human](/agents/operating-models/multi-human) | Operating model | Multi-human is the operating model where several Humans share Roles with Agents, each Human working under their own Mandate and Limits. |
| [Single human](/agents/operating-models/single-human) | Operating model | Single human is the operating model with one Human, a working CEO or a passive board chair, and Agents in every other Role. |
| [Corporate records](/systems/corporate-records) | System | Corporate records keeps the legal Company behind a Startup: formation, officers, registered office, filings, board resolutions and good standing. |
| [Discovery](/business/discovery) | System | Discovery runs buyer research: Interviews, Problems, graded Evidence, ICPs and Personas, so every Offer starts from what buyers said. |
| [Documents](/code/systems/documents) | System | Documents keeps every versioned Document, deck or sheet, generated from records and rendered to the web, PDF, slides or spreadsheets. |
| [Equity](/systems/equity) | System | Equity is the core System that keeps the cap table of each Company: shares, SAFEs, options and their holders, grants, vesting and conversions. |
| [Experiments](/systems/experiments) | System | Experiments tests Hypotheses by varying copy, Price or behavior through Flags and decides each winner from primary and guardrail Metrics. |
| [Goals](/business/goals) | System | Goals records what each Thing is trying to achieve: its Goals, Key Results read from Metrics, and the Decisions behind them. |
| [Hiring](/systems/hiring) | System | Hiring fills open Roles with Humans: postings, candidates, screening calls held as Meetings, assessments and employment Agreements. |
| [Intellectual property](/systems/intellectual-property) | System | Intellectual property keeps a Startup’s trademarks, patents, Domains and handles as one register, with deadlines and renewals watched. |
| [Ledger](/systems/ledger) | System | Ledger is the double-entry book of record: Entries posted from Events, reconciled to Transactions, and closed each Period into statements. |
| [Pay runs](/systems/payroll) | System | Pay runs keeps each employee’s pay record, prepares every run with withholding and deductions, and posts it to the Ledger. |
| [Product analytics](/systems/product-analytics) | System | Product analytics turns the Visits and Events captured on every Domain and API into the conversion, activation and retention Metrics every Team reads. |
| [Reports](/systems/reports) | System | Reports arranges saved Metric queries into Dashboards, weekly reviews and investor updates, delivered on a schedule and watched for thresholds. |
| [Spend management](/systems/spend) | System | Spend management controls money going out: budgets, bills, expenses and cards issued on Stripe, each paid against Limits and spend states. |
| [Surveys](/systems/surveys) | System | Surveys measures sentiment, such as NPS, CSAT and the product-market-fit question, and turns every answer into Metrics and Evidence. |
| [Tax](/systems/tax) | System | Tax calculates and collects sales tax and VAT, tracks registrations, and prepares every return and information return. |
| [Treasury](/systems/treasury) | System | Treasury holds a Startup’s cash accounts and balances on Stripe, moves money between them, and forecasts runway. |
| [Workforce](/systems/workforce) | System | Workforce keeps every Worker, Human or Agent: the Roles they fill, their Teams, Skills, onboarding, assessments and offboarding. |
| [Customer research](/workflows/processes/customer-research) | Process | Customer research learns from what buyers did and paid, never from their predictions. |
| [Founder Run](/code/founder-run) | Process | Founder Run walks every Startup Template through its published Interfaces in test, as a synthetic founder and buyers, and records each step that stops. |
| [Iteration](/workflows/processes/iteration) | Process | Iteration improves the Startup one change at a time: one number, the worst step, and one change a week. |
| [Role review](/workflows/processes/role-review) | Process | Role review checks every filled Role against its contract each week and turns each missed result into a Decision. |
| [Runway](/workflows/processes/runway) | Process | Runway tells the Founder every week whether the Startup reaches profit before its cash runs out. |
| [Staffing](/workflows/processes/staffing) | Process | Staffing fills every Role in a Startup with an Agent by default and a Human where one is required. |
| [Strategy](/workflows/processes/strategy) | Process | Strategy keeps the Startup’s ambitions, focus, and positioning true to its Evidence. |
| [Owned following](/workflows/plays/owned-following) | Play | Owned following grows a niche newsletter, community and shared accounts in a Studio media Startup and lends its slots to siblings by expected value. |
| [Reserve drop](/workflows/plays/reserve-drop) | Play | Reserve drop opens refundable deposits for 72 hours after one creator post and moves the Startup to Building only if deposits cross the entry check. |
| [Agreement](/business/nouns/agreement) | Noun | An Agreement is a contract between two or more Parties, with its term, liability, and economics, that travels with the Startup. |
| [Builder](/business/nouns/builder) | Noun | A Builder is a named part of api.sb that builds one side of a Startup; StartupBuilder directs SiteBuilder, SoftwareBuilder, ServiceBuilder, and SalesBuilder. |
| [Cohort](/business/nouns/cohort) | Noun | A Cohort is a set of Startups that receives one Version of a shared definition, or one step of a Play, at the same time. |
| [Company](/business/nouns/company) | Noun | A Company is a legal entity that holds Startups, signs Agreements, and owns equity, authority, and profit rights. |
| [Evidence](/business/nouns/evidence) | Noun | Evidence is a recorded quote, reading, or artifact that supports or refutes a claim, graded as behavior, commitment, or opinion. |
| [Experiment](/business/nouns/experiment) | Noun | An Experiment is a test of a Hypothesis that varies copy or behavior through Flags and judges the variants by a primary Metric. |
| [Exposure](/business/nouns/exposure) | Noun | An Exposure is the moment one unit meets the Variant its Flag assigned, logged with every option and its propensity. |
| [Forecast](/business/nouns/forecast) | Noun | A Forecast is a dated week-by-week projection of a Startup’s cash, revenue and Cost, computed from its records, that sets its spend state. |
| [Goal](/business/nouns/goal) | Noun | A Goal is what a Thing is trying to achieve: an objective with one or more Key Results. |
| [Human](/business/nouns/human) | Noun | A Human is a Worker who is a person, acting on Tasks through Apps, Mailboxes, and Channels. |
| [Hypothesis](/business/nouns/hypothesis) | Noun | A Hypothesis is a belief about a Startup stated so it can be proved wrong, with the Metric and threshold that settle it. |
| [ICP](/business/nouns/icp) | Noun | An ICP is the ideal customer profile a Startup is built to win: who they are and what they do. |
| [Interview](/business/nouns/interview) | Noun | An Interview is one person’s pass through a question script, led by an Agent, whose answers become Evidence. |
| [Key Result](/business/nouns/key-result) | Noun | A Key Result is one measurable target inside a Goal: a Metric, a baseline, a target, and a deadline. |
| [Lifecycle](/business/nouns/lifecycle) | Noun | A Lifecycle is the states a Thing of one Noun moves through and the Verbs that move it between them. |
| [Minimum Success Criteria](/business/nouns/minimum-success-criteria) | Noun | Minimum Success Criteria is the one number a Startup must reach by a date to stay worth running: a Goal the Founder sets once. |
| [Persona](/business/nouns/persona) | Noun | A Persona is a named type of person with a job to do, such as a buyer, a seller, or an admin of an App. |
| [Policy](/business/nouns/policy) | Noun | A Policy is a ruling a Startup declares on how its numbers are computed or its choices made, such as revenue recognition. |
| [Portfolio](/business/nouns/portfolio) | Noun | A Portfolio is a managed set a Thing allocates attention and money across, by membership: a Studio’s Startups, a Startup’s child Startups, or its Products. |
| [Problem](/business/nouns/problem) | Noun | A Problem is what an ICP struggles with, in their own words: how they solve it today and what it costs them. |
| [Project](/business/nouns/project) | Noun | A Project is a body of work toward a Goal: its Tasks and Issues, a start, and a target date. |
| [Readout](/business/nouns/readout) | Noun | A Readout is an Experiment’s result per Variant on its Metric, with the sample size, the interval, and how far the number can be trusted. |
| [Role](/business/nouns/role) | Noun | A Role is a seat that owns a set of work and holds the Permissions to do it, filled by a Human or an Agent. |
| [Startup Template](/business/nouns/startup-template) | Noun | A Startup Template is an operating model, one or more Product Templates, and the Motions they sell through, which a new Startup starts from. |
| [Story](/business/nouns/story) | Noun | A Story is the customer narrative for one ICP, compiled from its Founding Hypothesis and Interview quotes, never written by hand. |
| [Studio](/business/nouns/studio) | Noun | A Studio is an organization that builds Startups, holds them through Companies, and runs Plays across its Portfolio. |
| [System](/business/nouns/system) | Noun | A System is the headless software for one job, such as CRM or billing, that every Startup runs on shared data. |
| [Team](/business/nouns/team) | Noun | A Team is a named group of Roles under one owner; every Startup starts with eleven default Teams. |
| [Variant](/business/nouns/variant) | Noun | A Variant is one value an Experiment can assign, such as a revision, a Price on a sibling Offer, or a prompt, with its lineage. |
| [Worker](/business/nouns/worker) | Noun | A Worker is a Human or an Agent that fills a Role and acts on Tasks. |
| [Idea.pursue](/business/nouns/idea/pursue) | Verb | Pursue starts a Startup on an Idea as one variant of the Experiment that tests the Idea. |
| [Play.apply](/business/nouns/play/apply) | Verb | Apply runs a Play across a Portfolio cohort, one wave at a time, measured as an Experiment. |
| [Startup.advance](/business/nouns/startup/advance) | Verb | Advance moves a Startup to its next Lifecycle state once every entry check of that state passes. |
| [Startup.build](/business/nouns/startup/build) | Verb | Build provisions the Systems, Sites and Interfaces a Startup’s definition declares, and moves the Startup to Building. |
| [Startup.claim](/business/nouns/startup/claim) | Verb | Claim binds a provisional Startup to a verified owner, which enables payments and every Verb that moves money. |
| [Startup.clone](/business/nouns/startup/clone) | Verb | Clone copies a Startup’s definition into a new Startup once, with no link back to the source. |
| [Startup.graduate](/business/nouns/startup/graduate) | Verb | Graduate moves a Startup to a Company of its own, with its Customers, Domains and records intact. |
| [Startup.hold](/business/nouns/startup/hold) | Verb | Hold keeps a Startup running in its current Lifecycle state with no new investment from the Studio. |
| [Startup.import](/business/nouns/startup/import) | Verb | Import builds a new Startup from an existing business’s definition: its Offers, Pages, Nouns and Processes. |
| [Startup.launch](/business/nouns/startup/launch) | Verb | Launch puts a Startup live on its domain, serving its Offers to Customers. |
| [Startup.pause](/business/nouns/startup/pause) | Verb | Pause moves a Startup to Dormant: its scheduled Workflows stop, and its Sites and records stay in place. |
| [Startup.resume](/business/nouns/startup/resume) | Verb | Resume returns a Dormant Startup to the Lifecycle state it held when it paused. |
| [Startup.sell](/business/nouns/startup/sell) | Verb | Sell transfers a Startup, with its Customers, Domains and records, to a buyer under a signed Agreement. |
| [StartupTemplate.extend](/business/nouns/startup-template/extend) | Verb | Extend adds a Startup Template to a Startup’s bases, pinned to a Version, so the Startup inherits its definition. |
| [StartupTemplate.promote](/business/nouns/startup-template/promote) | Verb | Promote moves one Startup’s refinement into a Startup Template, so every Startup that extends it inherits the refinement. |
| [StartupTemplate.upgrade](/business/nouns/startup-template/upgrade) | Verb | Upgrade moves a Startup to a newer Version of a Startup Template it extends, through a Change it can review. |
| [Template.extend](/business/nouns/template/extend) | Verb | Extend adds a Template to a Startup’s bases, pinned to a Version, so the Startup inherits its definition. |
| [Template.promote](/business/nouns/template/promote) | Verb | Promote moves one Startup’s refinement into a Template, so every Startup that extends the Template inherits it. |
| [Template.upgrade](/business/nouns/template/upgrade) | Verb | Upgrade moves a Startup to a newer Version of a Template it extends, through a Change it can review. |