About This Game

From a garage to a global empire

You started with a laptop and an idea. Idle Startup is a relaxing incremental game about growing that idea into a global tech company — one completed task at a time. Pick a skill and it goes to work: progress bars fill, XP rolls in, money stacks up. Spend it, level up, and watch new skills and whole departments unlock as your company climbs from a one-person Garage Startup to a Corporate Office.

Six skills, each its own journey

Every one of the six skills has its own upgrade tree gated by level and cost, backed by a company-wide store and an R&D lab. Push each skill through milestones at levels 25, 50, 75 and 99 for permanent, company-wide bonuses — and when a skill maxes out it keeps earning Mastery, a slow bonus that never stops growing.

Prestige, and go again — faster

Cash out your company for Founder Points and spend them in the Founder Store on permanent, cross-run upgrades: extra parallel skill slots, compounding growth, seed capital, a veteran team. Every run resets the ramp so the next climb is faster and reaches higher. It's an endless prestige loop with real teeth.

Automate the grind

Once you know the loop, hand it off. The Auto tab lets you toggle Auto-Hire, Auto-Train, Auto-Invest, Auto-Research, Auto-Accept-Contracts — even Auto-Refound. Build a machine that runs your whole company while you watch the numbers climb, or walk away entirely and come back richer.

Take on contracts, climb the boards

Accept contracts for bonus goals, then measure yourself against everyone else: global and friends leaderboards, plus time-to-99 speedrun boards tracked down to the second. How fast can you max a skill?

Make it yours

Switch between interface themes — the sleek Midnight IDE or the warm Poolside FM sunset — with seasonal drops like the Star-Spangled July 4th theme and its full-length lo-fi music playlist. A tidy, modern interface designed to stay out of your way.

Always progressing

Idle Startup respects your time. It keeps earning while it's closed, greets you with a Welcome Back recap of everything you made and every level you gained, and hands you a free Coffee Break speed boost a few times a day. Your save syncs through Steam Cloud, so you can pick up on any device.

Optional boost packs (you don't need them)

Three small optional purchases let you skip ahead if you want to: an Energy Drink for a 2× speed boost across four hours, a Coffee Pot for a full 24 hours, and a one-time Productivity Suite for a permanent 2× speed boost and unlimited offline earnings. None of them are required — the whole game is playable and completable without spending anything.

Features

• One-click idle loop — pick a skill, it runs itself
  
• 6 skills across 4 company tiers, from Garage Startup to Corporate Office
  
• Deep upgrade trees — 66 skill & company upgrades, an R&D lab, and a Founder Store
  
• Milestone bonuses at Lv 25/50/75/99, plus endless Mastery on maxed skills
  
• Prestige loop — cash out for Founder Points and permanent cross-run upgrades
  
• Full automation — six toggleable auto-managers, including auto-prestige
  
• Contracts for bonus goals to chase
  
• Global + friends leaderboards and time-to-99 speedrun boards
  
• 50+ Steam achievements, from First Day to Trillionaire
  
• Interface themes, including seasonal drops with their own music
  
• Offline progress with a clear Welcome Back recap
  
• Steam Cloud saves — play on Windows and macOS (Steam Deck supported via Proton)
  
• A free recurring speed boost, no ads ever
  
• Optional one-time boost purchases — never required, never gated

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

Idle Startup is made by a solo developer with the help of generative AI. The milestone background artwork — the illustrations that unlock as each skill levels up — is generated with AI image tools and then selected and curated by the developer. The game's code is also written with the assistance of AI coding tools. All music and sound effects are generated procedurally in code, the interface art and icons are hand-drawn, and all in-game text is written by the developer.