Create Your First Company
A Company in ThinkingMach 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 ThinkingMach is that first step.
This guide walks you through creating a company from scratch. Naming it takes under a minute.
Before you start
Make sure ThinkingMach is installed and running. If you haven't done that yet, start with the Installation guide.
Open the setup wizard
When you first open ThinkingMach, it drops you straight into the setup wizard. If you're adding another one later, open the organization switcher at the top of the sidebar and choose Create new organization….
Heads up: In the app, a company is now labelled an organization — same container, newer name. This guide says "company" to match the rest of the docs; the buttons you click say "organization".
The wizard is a single card that walks you through three quick screens: naming your organization, hiring your first agent, and connecting a model. A brand pill sits at the top of the card, dormant while you set things up and coming to life once you reach the review screen.
Name your organization
The first screen asks "What is the name of your organization?" Type a name and that's all it needs — no goal, no mission, nothing else to fill in.
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 it later from settings, so don't overthink it.
Click Continue
Click Continue. ThinkingMach creates the organization and takes you straight to the next screen — hiring your first agent, which the next guide covers in full.
Your company now exists, with no goal and no team yet. That's exactly where you should be.
Set your goal after creating the company
Creating a company no longer asks for a goal up front — you add it afterwards from the Goals section, and you can revise it any time.
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.
If your priorities change, revise the goal in the Goals section and the CEO will factor it into its next strategy cycle.
A note on multiple companies
You can create as many companies as you want in ThinkingMach. 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 them using the organization switcher in the sidebar.
Your company is ready. The next step is hiring your first agent — the one who will read your goal, propose a plan, and start making things happen.