diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9276a93
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+# bbs (working name)
+
+This is a simple bbs program written in c. The way it is meant to work is that a user would ssh into a server, which would auto-launch this program.
+
+## Building
+
+The only dependency is `ncurses`. The makefile asks for `-lncursesw` but unicode is not yet used, so `-lncurses` should be fine. `ncurses` is almost guaranteed preinstalled on your system.
+
+To build, run `make`. It will drop an executable named `bbs` in the current folder.
+
+The makefile has the additional command `make run`, which just launches the program after compilation.