Watch an employee build a company.
Watch an employee build a company.
Yours is next — free, about three minutes. No waitlist, no demo call.
Build mine now Read a night's work
Replayed from a real build log — nothing here is staged. Every line is a receipt → [](https://firstemployee.ai/#)
The next morning
Archival — a demo company our employee runs, not a customer. Everything below is its real shift report.
1. Your company is live at https://archival.firstemployee.app Shift #1 · 2 minutes of work · finished 02:26 2. 02:24 Shipped: Archival — Keep Your Podcasts and Channels Safe live 3. 02:25 Shipped: About Archival — Why We Keep What You Follow live 4. 02:25 Shipped: Contact Archival — Questions About Your Archive live 5. 02:25 Shipped: Archival Pricing — Plans to Keep Your Shows Safe live 6. 02:26 One thing I need from you: Tonight I start with: Set up database schema for storing podcast episodes and YouTube videos with metadata fields for title, source URL, publication date, and archive timestamp. — right priority? Yes, goI will leave a different instruction In your own report that is one tap, and tonight's shift starts from your answer.
That is the whole morning: one page, one decision, and the ledger underneath it if you want to check the work. How the ledger works →
Your first employee doesn't need a salary.
A live site in minutes. Receipts for every step.
Your money lands in your own Stripe, never ours.
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How a shift works
1. You say what the business is
One sentence is enough. If you would rather we proposed something, we read up on you first and suggest three ideas tied to what you actually know — and show you exactly where we got them.
2. It works while you are gone
Your company gets a live address, its own inbox, and somewhere to put code the same night. Then the employee picks up the work: shipping pages, researching the market, drafting copy, replying to mail. Anything that spends money or goes public waits for you.
3. You read one page in the morning
What shipped, what it learned, and the single question it needs answered to keep moving. Answer in one tap and tonight's shift starts from there.
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Every action leaves a receipt
The most common complaint about autonomous AI products is that you cannot tell whether the work happened. So each action writes an append-only row: the tool, what changed, the model, the tokens, the time it took, and a link to what it produced. Export it whenever you like.
| time | action | result | model | took | | -------- | -------------- | ----------------- | ------ | ---- | | 02:00:04 | read\_brief | ok | opus-5 | 2.1s | | 02:00:52 | search\_market | 11 results | opus-5 | 41s | | 02:04:19 | write\_doc | market-notes.md | opus-5 | 18s | | 02:11:38 | publish\_page | /waitlist → 200 | opus-5 | 9.4s | | 02:29:07 | send\_email | held for approval | — | — | | 03:14:22 | write\_report | shift #1 | opus-5 | 26s |
Note row five: sending mail is held for approval — nothing goes out until you say so.
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The whole thing, end to end
Four screens is the entire product. This is a demo company running on the live site — the same pages you get, not a mockup.
1. 01
You say what it should work on
One sentence, or pick one of the examples. You choose here whether we manage the money side or you bring your own keys — that choice does not unwind later, so it is made before anything starts rather than buried in billing. What should your employee work on? A sentence is enough. It will name the company, put a site up tonight and start work. e.g. A booking tool for physical-therapy clinics A local directory A niche newsletter A small SaaSManaged — recommended Bring your own keys 2. 02
It works the shift
At 2am your time, for about an hour. It ships pages, reads the analytics, drafts what needs drafting. Anything that would spend money, send mail or go public stops and waits for you instead. Your companies Using 1/1 companies · 1/1 shifts todayNocturne Archive Needs you I shipped the waitlist form and found three competitors worth watching. Last shift #3 · next 02:00 3. 03
You read one page over coffee
What shipped, what it learned, and one question. Answer in a tap and tonight starts from your answer — or type an instruction and it does that instead. Last night I shipped the waitlist form and found three competitors worth watching. ShippedWaitlist form and confirmation emaillive Shifts1 of 1 today One thing I need from you Should the waitlist ask for a use-case, or just an email? Just an email Ask the use-case 4. 04And you can check every word of it
Every action it took, in order, with the model, the result and a link to what it produced. If the report says a page shipped, the ledger has the write and the status code. Export it any time. Receipts| time | action | result | model | | -------- | ------------- | ----------------- | ------ | | 02:11:38 | publish\_page | /waitlist → 200 | opus-5 | | 02:29:07 | send\_email | held for approval | — | | 03:14:22 | write\_report | Shift #1 | opus-5 | Note row five: sending mail is held for approval — nothing goes out until you say so.
Nocturne Archive is a demo company we run on the product, not a customer. The numbers on our stats page are real counts from the database. See what the platform has actually done →
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You keep custody of your money
The best-known product in this category collects your customers' payments into a balance it controls, keeps 20% of every one, holds the rest for two weeks, and then caps how much you may withdraw in a calendar month. It also takes 20% off the top of your ad budget, so a fifth of what you meant to spend on advertising never becomes advertising.
We are not free — the managed plan takes 15% of what your company earns, and 15% to run your ad campaigns. The difference is where the money sits. Your customer pays into your own Stripe account and Stripe settles our share at the transaction, so we never hold a balance and could not cap your withdrawals if we tried. And because our advertising fee is charged on top rather than skimmed off, your whole ad budget buys ads.
| | First Employee | The alternative | | ------------------------------------------ | ----------------------- | --------------------------- | | Cut of your revenue | 15%, or 0% self-managed | 20%, no opt-out | | Of your ad budget, reaches the ad platform | All of it | Four fifths | | Holds your money | Never | 14 days | | Withdrawal limit | None | Capped every calendar month | | Whose ad account | Yours | Theirs, shared | | Trains AI on your business | No | Yes, irrevocably | | Receipt ledger | Full, exportable | — |
Read their terms, then read ours →
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Questions
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.
What exactly is a shift?
One overnight block of work. Your employee reads where the company stands, picks up whatever you left it, does the work, and writes you a report. You get 30 shifts a month — one a night — and you can run one on demand whenever you want.
How do I know it actually did the work?
Every action writes a receipt: the tool it used, what changed, which model ran, how many tokens, how long it took, and a link to the artifact. The ledger is append-only, and you can export the whole thing as CSV or JSON at any time.
Can it spend my money without asking?
No — anything irreversible waits for you. Sending email, posting publicly, running ads and charging a customer all wait for your explicit approval. Reversible work — research, drafts, code, pages — happens on its own. You also get one button that stops everything instantly.
What if I already have a business?
Point us at it. Connect Stripe read-only and give us your site, and the first shift starts from what is actually true about your business rather than from a blank page.
Do I own what it makes?
Yes — the code, the copy, the domain and the data. You get a git remote you can clone from the first shift and an export button that actually works. We do not train models on your business.
Hire it tonight
The build is free and it takes about three minutes. No waitlist, no demo call.