First five minutes

Work through these steps in order. Each one points to the page that explains it, so you can read only the page you need.

1. Found the Company. Click Founder, choose Start a company, type a name and select Found. See Start and found a Company.

2. Pause. Press Space. Nothing changes while the clock stops, so read in peace. S changes the speed.

3. Read the screen. Find the HUD, the toolbar and the dock. See The screen at a glance.

4. Collect. Click Collect on the Payments card, or press C. Do it about once a minute until you research Stripe Billing. See Your first Company.

5. Read a card. Click the App Server and read its Load row. Amber means 70% and red means 90%. See Read a Node card and The Inspector.

6. Place a Component. Open a build group, pick a part and click the board. See Place Components.

7. Wire it. Drag from the output port on a card's right edge to another card. See Wire Nodes with Links.

8. Fix the first limit. The Garage box runs out of RAM or CPU credits. See Your first bottleneck.

9. Start a Study. Press R once it shows and select Start Study. See Research and Team panels.

10. Keep Mail in view. The Inbox badge turns red when a message needs you. See Mail, Dashboard, Glossary, pager, region tabs.

11. Meet an incident. Fix the cause, then file the postmortem. See Your first incident.

12. Learn the keys. Press H for the short list, or read the key reference.

If you place the wrong thing, press Z. An undo inside the first half minute refunds the full price. See Clock, undo, saves.

The Company saves itself, so close the tab whenever you like.

Next: Your first Company.