In this thesis, I report on my work, under the supervision of prof. dr Florian Schreck and dr. Benjamin Pasquiou, on the atom laser experiment at the University of Amsterdam. The work presented here revolves around a single theme, the development of new tools to prepare ultracold gases in steady state. Here we reach unprecedented steady-state phase-space densities up to a continuously existing Bose-Einstein condensate, we provide new sources for continuously operating superradiant lasers, and develop tools to manipulate steady-state ultracold gases.