Garage to IPO

The startup simulator

Garage to IPO is a free, single-player business simulation game that takes you from a scrappy garage startup to a publicly traded company. Hire teams, raise capital, ship products, manage the board, and decide when to IPO — all from your browser or installed as a mobile app.

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How to play

Start in the garage. Pick a venture type and use your starting cash to build an MVP and land early users.
Hire & spend wisely. Add engineers, sales, and marketers. Watch your burn rate and keep morale high.
Raise capital or bootstrap. Accept or negotiate term sheets, or skip fundraising entirely and own 100% of the company.
Scale to IPO. Hit $1B valuation and go public, then manage quarterly earnings, dividends, and share buybacks.
Exit & restart. Sell your stake, bank the proceeds, and launch your next company with new experience and capital.

How the simulation works

The monthly clock

One turn equals one month. You can pause, play, or fast-forward at 2x and 5x. Every tick recalculates revenue, payroll, server costs, marketing spend, and rent, then settles the result against your cash balance. If cash hits zero you get a 30-day bridge-financing window before the company folds.

The financial model

Cash balance = cash + monthly revenue − monthly burn. Revenue comes from users multiplied by average revenue per user, minus churn. Valuation is annual recurring revenue times a sector multiple, adjusted by your growth rate — so a slower-growing company with the same revenue is worth materially less.

Growth levers

Marketing budget splits across organic, paid acquisition, and enterprise sales, each with a different cost per customer and payback period. R&D spending raises product stability, which lowers churn and lifts ARPU over time. Hiring adds capacity but also fixed payroll, and morale falls when teams are stretched or under-compensated — equity grants help retain the people you need.

Stages and dilution

The five stages — garage, seed, Series A/B, Series C/pre-IPO, and public company — each unlock new mechanics. Raising a round adds cash and dilutes your ownership through the valuation cap and option pool, so the founder equity you keep at IPO is the real scoreboard. Bootstrapping all the way is viable but slower.

Life after the bell

Going public does not end the run. You set guidance each quarter, manage board confidence, and decide between buybacks, dividends, and reinvestment while the market reprices your stock against the numbers you actually deliver.

Features

Pick your venture

Choose from SaaS, consumer, hardware, biotech, or fintech. Each path has its own starting cost and unique hurdles.

Hire & scale

Recruit engineers, sales, marketing, and design talent. Balance payroll, morale, and productivity as you grow.

Raise & negotiate

Close seed, Series A, B, and C rounds. Negotiate valuation caps, dilution, and option pools — or bootstrap all the way.

Go public

Set your ticker, price your IPO, and ring the opening bell. Then manage quarterly earnings as a public company.

Play again

Sell your stake, bank your founder fortune, and launch your next company with new advantages.