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Running a Corporation as a Corporation (Questions)

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Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#1 - 2012-12-06 14:16:40 UTC  |  Edited by: Darenthul
Sorry if this is the wrong forum, there is no general Corporation forum and since it has to do with personal shares and payouts and such I figured this is the best place for it.

So our current corporation, Superior Resources, was founded by a large group of friends a few years back, and we've basically run it really wantonly across the board. Effectively the whole thing is paid for out of pocket, every asset, everything. Recently however we've begun hiring new employees to work the fields with us, helping newbies get into proper mining vessels, and just in general expanding our scope of our project.

The first step was the implementation of an Ore Buying program, effectively the Corporation pays a flat amount for each ore of a specific type (updated weekly). Members of the corporation can post their ores in a contract to the corporation, and one of us would buy them and refine/resell.

The big problem we're beginning to hit as this corporation develops into an actual business is the fact we're mingling corporate and personal assets to a level that's beginning to get rather annoying. A few of us are paying out of pocket extensively for corporation expenses (such as the other day when we purchased an extensive list of blueprints and such to build our own equipment) and for big things (such as Orcas and Freighters).

So I'm looking to overhaul the inner workings of the corporation to be more corporate, and I need some advice from the rest of you about how to handle it all.

Here's the current breakdown of plans:

  • Ore Purchasing is done through the Corporation Master Wallet instead of Personal Wallets
  • Ore is then Refined by members then resold through the Corporation (causing profits to be gained by the corp itself) with the resulting ISK going into the Corporation Weekly Wallet
  • Mining Ships, Equipment, and anything that's used to improve the corporation's gains are bought through the Corporation Master Wallet
  • Purchases from the Corporate Master Wallet must be approved by a board member
  • Purchases from the Corporate Master Wallet over a set amount must be approved by corporate vote
  • Purchases from the Corporate Master Wallet are Corporate Assets, if they are ever considered unnecessary, they must be returned to the Corporation's holds
  • Weekly dividends will be paid out to shareholders based on profits (aka the amount in the Corporation Weekly Wallet) then whatever is in the Corporation Weekly Wallet is put into the Corporation Master Wallet
  • Mining Operations will split the payments evenly, at the end of an operation all the ore will be pooled and sold to corporation based on the rates set by the weekly prices then the ISK will be evenly split between the members involved.
  • We're considering an IPO to help start out the corporate wallet with some non-personal cash.

In this current system, the Corporation would gain the difference in profit between raw ore and refined ore, and then that would be recycled to buy equipment for the corporation to improve their output.

What I need help on is feedback, do you think this kind of system will work? Any other advice or feedback would be greatly GREATLY appreciative.

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Skydell
Bad Girl Posse
#2 - 2012-12-06 16:58:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Skydell
It will work but watch your mails, babysit the corp on a daily basis.

Ushra'Khan was disbanded abusing the shares system to knock the CEO out and it was done over a weekend because the guy had to go away on business.

The trouble with EVE corps and the system is the all or nothing power system.
Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#3 - 2012-12-06 17:00:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Darenthul
Skydell wrote:
It will work but watch your mails, babysit the corp on a daily basis.

Ushra'Khan was disbanded abusing the shares system to knock the CEO out and it was done over a weekend because the guy had to go away on business.

The trouble with EVE corps and the system is the all or nothing power system.


The main thing I'm looking for is security methods, how can I insure this doesn't happen? What steps can I take?

Even with majority shares belonging to IRL friends will this be a plausible issue?

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Fractal Muse
Sebiestor Tribe
Minmatar Republic
#4 - 2012-12-06 17:05:11 UTC
Personally, I would not suggest any purchase being put to a corporate wide vote. Limit voting for large purchases to the directors.

Think of it this way, would a company like Apple ask its front-line "Geniuses" if it could build a new corporate HQ?

Strategic decisions should be kept to those who are involved with setting corporate strategy. If the decision would impact a particular division of the corporation then an impact analysis and a feedback process from that division should be part of the decision making process.
Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#5 - 2012-12-06 17:05:54 UTC  |  Edited by: Darenthul
Fractal Muse wrote:
Personally, I would not suggest any purchase being put to a corporate wide vote. Limit voting for large purchases to the directors.

Think of it this way, would a company like Apple ask its front-line "Geniuses" if it could build a new corporate HQ?

Strategic decisions should be kept to those who are involved with setting corporate strategy. If the decision would impact a particular division of the corporation then an impact analysis and a feedback process from that division should be part of the decision making process.



Board votes I should note moreso meant Board of Directors. They make all the decisions. Individual directors can allow purchases/give assets, but only the board as a whole can vote for major decisions.

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Skydell
Bad Girl Posse
#6 - 2012-12-06 17:18:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Skydell
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:
It will work but watch your mails, babysit the corp on a daily basis.

Ushra'Khan was disbanded abusing the shares system to knock the CEO out and it was done over a weekend because the guy had to go away on business.

The trouble with EVE corps and the system is the all or nothing power system.


The main thing I'm looking for is security methods, how can I insure this doesn't happen? What steps can I take?

Even with majority shares belonging to IRL friends will this be a plausible issue?


The way the game is right now, just hit the new people with a mail and a donation to reflect their contribution. If they are new, they will appreciate it. If they are up to no good they will call you in to question. Never give up control of your corp. Someone in EVE will steal it.

I have 15 alts and nothing stops me from having 15 more.
It's too easy to meta in this game and being a liar is at least as much an asset as being honest, if you are good at it. Maybe they will rehaul the system one day.
Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#7 - 2012-12-06 17:21:11 UTC
Skydell wrote:
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:
It will work but watch your mails, babysit the corp on a daily basis.

Ushra'Khan was disbanded abusing the shares system to knock the CEO out and it was done over a weekend because the guy had to go away on business.

The trouble with EVE corps and the system is the all or nothing power system.


The main thing I'm looking for is security methods, how can I insure this doesn't happen? What steps can I take?

Even with majority shares belonging to IRL friends will this be a plausible issue?


The way the game is right now, just hit the new people with a mail and a donation to reflect their contribution. If they are new, they will appreciate it. If they are up to no good they will call you in to question. Never give up control of your corp. Someone in EVE will steal it.


Wasn't intending on anything except selling a few shares.

So I reiterate, between my brother and I for example if the majority of shares are ours (Let's say 51-75%) will the company be "unstealable" if we sell the rest?

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Skydell
Bad Girl Posse
#8 - 2012-12-06 17:22:56 UTC
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:
It will work but watch your mails, babysit the corp on a daily basis.

Ushra'Khan was disbanded abusing the shares system to knock the CEO out and it was done over a weekend because the guy had to go away on business.

The trouble with EVE corps and the system is the all or nothing power system.


The main thing I'm looking for is security methods, how can I insure this doesn't happen? What steps can I take?

Even with majority shares belonging to IRL friends will this be a plausible issue?


The way the game is right now, just hit the new people with a mail and a donation to reflect their contribution. If they are new, they will appreciate it. If they are up to no good they will call you in to question. Never give up control of your corp. Someone in EVE will steal it.


Wasn't intending on anything except selling a few shares.

So I reiterate, between my brother and I for example if the majority of shares are ours (Let's say 51-75%) will the company be "unstealable" if we sell the rest?


If you are certain someone is on to veto a vote but if you lose login for 3 or 4 days, someone can come in and unseat you.
Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#9 - 2012-12-06 17:23:57 UTC
Skydell wrote:

If you are certain someone is on to veto a vote but if you lose login for 3 or 4 days, someone can come in and unseat you.


Praytell, how exactly does that mechanic work? Are my shares void after 3 or 4 days of inactivity?

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Skydell
Bad Girl Posse
#10 - 2012-12-06 17:30:14 UTC
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:

If you are certain someone is on to veto a vote but if you lose login for 3 or 4 days, someone can come in and unseat you.


Praytell, how exactly does that mechanic work? Are my shares void after 3 or 4 days of inactivity?


A share lets me vote.
It lets me vote you out of CEO

You aren't on, you can't veto the vote.

tldr version: I put 6 alts in your corp, each one gets a vote because they have a share. I vote you out as CEO while you are on vacation. You come back, I am CEO.

1 share, 1000 shares, 10,0000 shares. I still have the power to cast a vote and make a push to be CEO. If you aren't there to contest it, I win by default.
Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#11 - 2012-12-06 17:32:50 UTC  |  Edited by: Darenthul
Skydell wrote:
Darenthul wrote:
Skydell wrote:

If you are certain someone is on to veto a vote but if you lose login for 3 or 4 days, someone can come in and unseat you.


Praytell, how exactly does that mechanic work? Are my shares void after 3 or 4 days of inactivity?


A share lets me vote.
It lets me vote you out of CEO

You aren't on, you can't veto the vote.

tldr version: I put 6 alts in your corp, each one gets a vote because they have a share. I vote you out as CEO while you are on vacation. You come back, I am CEO.

1 share, 1000 shares, 10,0000 shares. I still have the power to cast a vote and make a push to be CEO. If you aren't there to contest it, I win by default.


Ah gotcha.

So then, if I were to sell "shares" should I make up shares and effectively use that as a gauge? So I don't actually give them ingame shares (as that would allow them to overtake me as CEO) instead I write them down for so many virtual ones or whatever so I maintain full control?

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Abdiel Kavash
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#12 - 2012-12-07 00:34:15 UTC  |  Edited by: Abdiel Kavash
Yes.

Never ever ever ever ever ever ever give anybody in-game corporation shares. If you do, accept that this person can take over your corporation at any moment, including any assets in stations or in space, the CEO role, disbanding the corporation if they see fit, with you or anybody else being completely unable to do anything against them.

The singular reason you should ever give a share to anybody is to ensure that a replacement CEO can step up in case of a "hit by a truck" scenario. And anyone you give shares to should be a person you trust enough to essentially become a second CEO of the corporation - and also someone you trust enough to return the shares if/when they lose that position.

There is no way to recall shares once you give them to somebody other than that person willingly giving them back.

If you want to operate on a shareholder system, create and manage shares out of game, disconnected from the in-game system. (Google docs tend to be particularly popular in the community.)
Llyandrian
Livestock Science Exchange
#13 - 2012-12-07 09:38:09 UTC

A company can have it's capital increased by the addition of capital assets as well as cash. Since there is no way to easily run directors loan accounts, the best option is to issue shares for cany capital assets impressed in to the business.
Tau Cabalander
Retirement Retreat
Working Stiffs
#14 - 2012-12-07 10:23:21 UTC
I don't recommend using the master wallet for anything other then recurring charges, like office rent, alliance fees, sovereignty fees, etc. The idea is to limit access to it as much as possible.
Chorus Ambrye
Doomheim
#15 - 2012-12-07 11:33:46 UTC
I used to run a industry corp a long time ago, it sounds very similar to what you are up to, we started out as a small group that pooled all our isk and had a "common goal" for the corporation.

As we wanted to expand we started recruiting, but we made sure never to recruit to many new players at once, we made sure not to overwhelm new players in the corp business, but get people involved on their own terms, we can forget that eve is a game after all :)

We ran ops every night, that people were free to join as they wished some of them were for fun like silly pvp ops into 0.0 that always ended up horribly wrong haha, but others were just fun to do with company, like mining.

We always had a clear vision for all corp members, we made sure to involve everyone in all big decisions, the directors of the corp would maintain the profit side of things for the corp but all members were involved in it.

Everyone in the corp were welcome to maintain their own personal ventures, but we made sure that every player in the corp was involved enough in the "corp business" to care about it enough to donate some of their time.

we had all sorts of benefits for our members, if a ship was lost on one of our ops we made sure to replace it, we had some sort of a insurance system on ships and modules for players in case they lost their ship outside of an op for what ever reason, I didn't manage that system so I dont remember the details on it, but it was very popular.

Basically, dont forget eve is a game, new players dont expect to come to "work" and older players often are more interested in their own profits rather then the corp they are in, make sure you involve everyone enough for them to care and acctually see some benefits for it.

But be prepared to have to donate a lot of time to the corp management, and make sure you have dedicated directors that are prepared to do the same :)

Security wise, we were active enough to be able to handle requests quickly, only players that were very dedicated had access to certain parts of the corp hangar and we never put items in those hangars we weren't prepared to loose.

no one member had the right to take from the corp wallet, the corp wallet was used for the normal expenses of the current profit schemes and before venturing into new things or if there was an unexpected expense we would have a meeting of the directors and then make sure we informed the corporation and got them involved.

It worked out great until we moved to 0.0 with the wrong alliance, but that is a whole different story :)

Good Luck ! you seem like you will do fine ;)
P3po
Perkone
Caldari State
#16 - 2012-12-07 12:18:29 UTC
Run the corp alone and you don't have to worry about this :)

You don't have to give shares and don't risk to get robbed, atleast not completly robbed.

You can lock down your BPO's and keep assets the other people don't need in corp hangar which only you can access.

But yea, I think it also depends how you wanna run the corp. The way we run is mostly group of people hanging together. I pay for the ore and ice they mine, and with the income I pay all corp expenses (rent, fuel, logistics, any fees, also pay for my time handling the ore etc.) and than I support every member in their own private ventures. The members get logistic support for their own manufacture/research/whatever they wanna do, they mine and get payed without any effort from their side and they get bonuses from perfect boosters and also the know how and guidance in their ventures. In return, I cut down around 10-15% from Jita price for the ore.



Darenthul
Anstard Armory Inc.
#17 - 2012-12-07 12:20:07 UTC
Chorus Ambrye wrote:
I used to run a industry corp a long time ago, it sounds very similar to what you are up to, we started out as a small group that pooled all our isk and had a "common goal" for the corporation.

As we wanted to expand we started recruiting, but we made sure never to recruit to many new players at once, we made sure not to overwhelm new players in the corp business, but get people involved on their own terms, we can forget that eve is a game after all :)

We ran ops every night, that people were free to join as they wished some of them were for fun like silly pvp ops into 0.0 that always ended up horribly wrong haha, but others were just fun to do with company, like mining.

We always had a clear vision for all corp members, we made sure to involve everyone in all big decisions, the directors of the corp would maintain the profit side of things for the corp but all members were involved in it.

Everyone in the corp were welcome to maintain their own personal ventures, but we made sure that every player in the corp was involved enough in the "corp business" to care about it enough to donate some of their time.

we had all sorts of benefits for our members, if a ship was lost on one of our ops we made sure to replace it, we had some sort of a insurance system on ships and modules for players in case they lost their ship outside of an op for what ever reason, I didn't manage that system so I dont remember the details on it, but it was very popular.

Basically, dont forget eve is a game, new players dont expect to come to "work" and older players often are more interested in their own profits rather then the corp they are in, make sure you involve everyone enough for them to care and acctually see some benefits for it.

But be prepared to have to donate a lot of time to the corp management, and make sure you have dedicated directors that are prepared to do the same :)

Security wise, we were active enough to be able to handle requests quickly, only players that were very dedicated had access to certain parts of the corp hangar and we never put items in those hangars we weren't prepared to loose.

no one member had the right to take from the corp wallet, the corp wallet was used for the normal expenses of the current profit schemes and before venturing into new things or if there was an unexpected expense we would have a meeting of the directors and then make sure we informed the corporation and got them involved.

It worked out great until we moved to 0.0 with the wrong alliance, but that is a whole different story :)

Good Luck ! you seem like you will do fine ;)


Yea I figure virtual shares are the best bet, I can distribute the ones ingame between myself and IRL friends just to keep things stable and warn them not to give any up to anyone.

"I find mining to be an incredibly relaxing thing to do after work. It's like fishing without waking up early. Or cold. But the beer, the beer is the same." - arramdaywalker
Dalts
Out of Focus
Odin's Call
#18 - 2012-12-08 12:37:56 UTC
You can use the share system to distibute profits, but just use another corp for it.

Set up a corp called "Whatever Your Corp Name Is Profit Share" and transfer Isk into there to to distibute it. This corp holds no assets and just gets the weekly profit payment to then distribute. Stick an alt in it from each of your proper corp's directors.

Less hassle than an out of game payment system, and if you end up with someone leaving corp with shares you can just close corp and start a new one for the same purpose.

Alternatively do as you say by managing share allocations outside of game, but this way works ok for what you want to do.

In terms of other access, as long as you can guarentee that one of the trusted directors is online all the time you can heavily restrict access to corp hangars, otherwise you'll have to have some cover for basic equipment and ship handing out.

Something else to consider is that introducing loads of "middle management" is always tempting but often just causes ineffiencies, only has roles that are really needed. Make people feel involved in the corp using the profit share scheme so they are invested.

Corp wallet wise you can assign specific wallets to specific goals and let people see how you are progressing without giving them access to the ISK, again this is good for motivation.

Catch me ingame some time if you want to go through anything else and I'll provide any advice I have on it. Good luck and just make sure, as someone said above, the you keep it a game and don't turn it into "work" for either the leaders/directors or the corp members.
Trit
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#19 - 2012-12-09 12:26:48 UTC
Is there anyway for a non corp member to make a push for CEO of a corp if they own shares in the corp?

Shine on Crazy Nubbins
ISD Cura Ursus
ISD Community Communications Liaisons
ISD Alliance
#20 - 2012-12-10 18:35:43 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Cura Ursus
Trit wrote:
Is there anyway for a non corp member to make a push for CEO of a corp if they own shares in the corp?



As far as I know, no.

Out of corp shareholders _do_ get to vote, but only in corp members can start a vote.
and even if they did, they would not get anything out of it but a useless corp.
(that is to say, you would only transfer isk to corp right before you distributed dividends, thus ensuring that the shareholder corp had no assets to steal).



This is why creating a secondary "shareholder" corp is a good idea.

ISD Cura Ursus

Lieutenant Commander

Community Communication Liaisons (CCLs)

Interstellar Services Department
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