Create Your First Company
A Company in Paperclip is the container for everything: your goal, your team of agents, all the tasks they work through, and the budget that keeps spending under control. Before any agents can do anything, they need a company to work inside.
Think of it like setting up a new startup. You open a workspace, write down what you’re trying to build, decide how much runway you’re working with, and then you can start hiring. Creating a company in Paperclip is that first step.
This guide walks you through creating a company from scratch. The whole process takes about three minutes.
Before you start
Section titled “Before you start”Sign in to your Paperclip.inc account.
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Click “New Company”
When you first open Paperclip, you’ll be taken into onboarding or see a start screen with a New Company button. Click that to begin.
Clicking it opens the company creation panel.
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Name your company
Give your company a name. This is just a label for your own reference, it doesn’t affect how agents work. Pick something that describes the purpose of this particular AI company.
Examples:
- “Content Marketing Agency”
- “Software MVP”
- “Customer Support Automation”
You can rename the company later from its settings, so don’t overthink it.
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Write your company goal (optional)
If you already know what this company should achieve, add that direction now. The goal is the north star that every agent in your company can see. Every task the CEO creates, every strategy it proposes, every decision it makes, it all flows from this goal.
A good goal has two things: a specific outcome and a measurable target. Vague goals give agents nothing concrete to anchor their work to.
Instead of… Write… ”Grow the business" "Reach $10,000/month in recurring revenue by Q3" "Do content marketing" "Publish 4 high-quality blog posts per week and grow organic traffic to 10,000 monthly visitors by June" "Build an app" "Ship a working MVP with user authentication, a core feature, and a landing page by May 1st” Tip: Include a metric and a timeframe. “Build the #1 AI note-taking app at $1M ARR within 6 months” is a goal an agent can reason about. “Improve the product” is not.
You can update or add goals later from the Goals section. If your priorities change, revise the goal there and the CEO will factor it into its next strategy cycle.
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Save and continue
Click Create Company. Paperclip creates the company and takes you to its dashboard.
The dashboard is empty because you haven’t hired any agents yet. That’s exactly where you are: company created, team not yet assembled.
A note on multiple companies
Section titled “A note on multiple companies”You can create as many companies as you want in Paperclip. Each is entirely self-contained, separate agents, tasks, goals, and budgets. This is useful if you want to run different AI-powered initiatives in parallel: a development company and a marketing company, for example, with separate teams and budgets for each.
Switch between companies using the company selector in the sidebar.
Your company is ready. The next step is hiring the CEO, the first agent who will read your goal, propose a plan, and start making things happen.