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Advice on running a corporation?
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Lazarus Sparrow Likes received: 0	#1 - 2011-09-07 13:28:58 UTC Hello, I would like to run a corporation of my own and would like advice on how to do it. Does anyone have any experience running a corporation? I'm looking for advice for all facets of running a corporation. Thank you for your time.

Louis deGuerre

The Dark Tribe

Likes received: 799

#2 - 2011-09-07 13:33:38 UTC

Use titles to make specific jobs in your corp.
Then assign titles to the people who do those jobs.
Major advantage is that it is easy to tell who is what and you can give everyone doing that job additional or less rights and roles when required.
Never assign roles directly.
Never give anyone shares.
Only make someone director if you really really really really really trust them.

Best advice ? Get someone else to do it Lol

Nymphmaster

Viziam

Amarr Empire

Likes received: 9

#3 - 2011-09-07 13:41:26 UTC

Best way to run a corporation:

Find a group of ragtag carebears who are already in a somewhat disorganized Corporation.
Join their corporation. Don't ask for roles of any type for a while. Eventually ask for a minor role to start building trust. Contribute some good ideas that legitimately help the corporation grow. Gain more trust. Look like the old guru who knows how corps work. Earn more trust. Help them win some wars. Only once you get pretty late in the game, get yourself whatever roles you can.

DON'T fall in love with the corporation druring all this.

???

Depending on how fast you work your way to ??? and how well you ??? you can make a few billion per month. The better you get at growing corps the more you can make. If you are REALLY good at speaking then after you do ??? the corp will still be able to pick up the pieces and MIGHT still view you as a hero of sorts.

2
Joe Forum Likes received: 2	#4 - 2011-09-07 13:47:21 UTC 1 Louis deGuerre wrote: Only make someone director if you really really really really really trust them. and you know where they live :)

Damiez

Malum Mortuus

Nuclear Confusion

Likes received: 26

#5 - 2011-09-07 14:10:30 UTC

Joe Forum wrote:

Louis deGuerre wrote:

Only make someone director if you really really really really really trust them.

and you know where they live :)

Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me! Pick me!

If you wish to rent this space, Please enquire within.

Cruor Angelicus 4,316
Xercodo Cruor Angelicus Likes received: 4,316	#6 - 2011-09-07 14:25:15 UTC Actually I'd recommend dividing the shares among 5 or so of your more trusted members so that in the event that you suddenly disappear they can vote you out as CEO and keep running The Drake is a Lie

Red Rock Mining Company 276
Rees Noturana Red Rock Mining Company Likes received: 276	#7 - 2011-09-07 15:00:35 UTC Xercodo wrote: Actually I'd recommend dividing the shares among 5 or so of your more trusted members so that in the event that you suddenly disappear they can vote you out as CEO and keep running Yeah, I did that but good luck getting them back when they disappear! _ _

813
gfldex Likes received: 813	#8 - 2011-09-07 15:06:13 UTC Join a corp that is recruiting lots of pilots. Be active, lead, then be some more active and lead some more. Wait for drama proper (it _will_ happen) then leave that corp with have of the player base. If you take all the sand out of the box, only the cat poo will remain.

ACY GTMI

Veerhouven Group

Likes received: 108

#9 - 2011-09-08 11:18:29 UTC

One of the most important things to do when you are a CEO is be consistent. Don't change the rules every five minutes, and try to treat the same kind of behavior the same way every time you encounter it.

Another thing is plan ahead. Certain things, like war decs, are inevitable. Have some kind of plan for as many of the common problems as possible.

Third, don't panic in front of your corp members. It's ok for you to have a nervous breakdown off line, but, if something goes really wrong, don't freak out on line and start asking your corp members what to do. It's fine to ask for suggestions, advice, but, if you act like you are clueless, it can be demoralizing for the members.

When you pick a course of action stick to it until you are sure that it isn't leading anywhere positive. Changing directions randomly has always seemed to me to be more expensive than traveling a short way down the wrong road.

If someone asks you a question and you aren't absolutely sure of the answer, say so. People will have a lot more respect for you if you admit that you don't know everything than if your offhand answer leads them to do something stupid and expensive.

Help people if you can, but not to the point where they don't have to do anything at all. You want productive members. Not just lots of members.

Amun Khonsu

School of Applied Knowledge

Caldari State

Likes received: 116

#10 - 2011-09-08 13:51:25 UTC

Lazarus Sparrow wrote:

Hello,

I would like to run a corporation of my own and would like advice on how to do it. Does anyone have any experience running a corporation? I'm looking for advice for all facets of running a corporation.

Thank you for your time.

It really depends on what you want to do with your new corp (PvP, Industry, Missions, etc) and the type of people you want to play a part in it. Your attitude toward security, recruitment and management can change significantly based on this.

If ya have any questions as you run into things, feel free to shoot me a mail or convo me ingame.

Fight them until turmoil is no more and strike terror into their hearts. www.ross-fw.net

Lazarus Sparrow

Likes received: 0

#11 - 2011-09-08 15:09:34 UTC

Amun Khonsu wrote:

I'm not sure what kind of corp I would like to have. I think I would like one that can deal with wardecs well. Also, I don't really know how to recruit when starting from such a low member count. People tend to like to have many members in a corp. And I don't want to steal corp members from a corp that I'm in.

I can't think of much I can offer to anyone who joins my corp other than orca and freighter support, plus 0% refining tax with two npc corps.

If I try to attract newbies, I can give away free stuff to them to entice them to join. But they won't be able to handle wardecs that well. If i try to attract higher SP players, they will be able to handle wardecs but will have no reason to join because I won't be able to offer them anything they don't already have.

Such is my situation.

Ranger64511

The Scope

Gallente Federation

Likes received: 26

#12 - 2011-09-08 15:32:30 UTC

Lazarus Sparrow wrote:

Amun Khonsu wrote:

I have been in lots of corporations and it takes time to build. I am the CEO of my corporation right now and we are going 20ish strong. We do a lot of PVP operations and are focusing our PVP efforts on Black Ops stuff now. The best idea is to join a corporation for awhile and learn and watch how the directors and CEO's and other officers operate. It took me over 6 months of watching other CEO's and leadership learning to make this corporation. The real trick is to just find something that someone want's.

One key thing i heard of the other day was that I was an actual PVP CEO instead of just a paper CEO. I would say that's a key thing is to be down in the "trenches" with your members instead of thinking that you are above them. I mean anyone in my corporation would say I have that ego that I am above them but they can't deny that I am down there PVPing with them and losing ships every so often.

Your welcome to mail me or convo me if you want to chat.

This is my gate. There are many others like it, but this one is mine. My gate is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my gate is useless. Without my gate, I am useless.

Nor Tzestu

Dos Pollos Hermanos

Likes received: 58

#13 - 2011-09-08 21:42:59 UTC

First if you start a corp the biggest question you have to ask yourself is can you defend yourself ? Believe me when I say it's only a matter of time until you are war decced. When you start a corp in eve you are telling everyone you are ready to stand on your own. Be sure you can. If you can't, then save your self the headache and make a public channel for you and your friends to hang out in.

I have been in corps with GREAT leadership , corps with non existent leadership and corps with some of the worst "leadership" you can imagine. CEO's who will bend over backwards to help you, some with utter indifference to you and some who will flat out lie or make things up to impress you. All of them taught me something about how a corp runs. And I took away ideas from all of them about how I would do things. Without those experiences I really can't tell you how I would begin to start a corp, let alone give anyone a reason to join mine. Having clear goals for your corp and laying out a good foundation to reach those goals would be a start. A corp must have a clear path that is in line with it's members goals to succeed. After that you really need to research how you want to get there and what type of players you are looking for.

Best of luck.

RUSROG

Avalanche.

Likes received: 168

#14 - 2011-09-09 01:00:12 UTC

Treat your corp mates with respect and be helpful.

One thing that I can recommend: be careful recruiting...obviously.
Make sure that you give people a 'trial' period to prove themselves useful or needed. Helps work around the offliners.

Be ready to fight with corp members and run some fleets if you are going to start completely from scratch, even if you have a director level person in corp - be ready to fleet for the first 6 or so months, so that people can trust you in defending the corp. Turn up to all corp events, to build reputation.

Encourage people to come up with self-initiatives. This will help you see who has potential to be a vice-ceo or a minor director in case that you cannot be on. Turn up to those initiatives, be it a mining op or a roam - and help run them too.

That's pretty much it off the top of my head.

If you need anything mail me.

Cheers

Gregor Palter

Likes received: 108

#15 - 2011-09-09 13:03:25 UTC | Edited by: Gregor Palter

The most important part of being a CEO is knowing what the hell you're doing. If you have no clue on the game then you shouldn't be leading, everything else comes from that. The desire to lead, just because, is almost always the wrong way to do it as people who WANT to lead are rarely qualified for the job, for that exact reason. Real leaders step up because they see an issue, a problem or they want to do it "better" in a "someone's got to do it, might as well be me" approach.

As I see it, if the CEO is (partially) clueless what's the point of joining that corp?

Excuses are the refuge of the weak.

Route One 787
Othran Route One Likes received: 787	#16 - 2011-09-09 13:42:21 UTC Don't EVER give away shares. Ask Reikoku about giving away shares to members - when a corp member leaves with shares they still get notification of all corp votes. Not good. If you want to payout dividends then do it on a different basis.

Lazarus Sparrow

Likes received: 0

#17 - 2011-09-09 14:18:51 UTC

Gregor Palter wrote:

Thanks for the advice, I understand the need to know what you're doing. But I guess I am somewhat guilty of being clueless. I have a general idea of what I want to do, but being at only 18m SP, I don't have that much experience in all aspects of Eve. I can offer help to newbies in Hisec, but that's about all. I've had a small amount of experience in wormholes, but don't think I can do it in my own corp unless there's some fellow experienced players with me. I've had no experience in lowsec or nullsec, so wouldn't be able to do much there.

I guess I need to spend more time exploring Eve's different gameplay styles.

Gregor Palter

Likes received: 108

#18 - 2011-09-09 15:04:41 UTC

You don't have to know "everything", just "a lot". Also, knowledge doesn't come with SP as there's many players who've been playing for years but are still clueless. You have to see a corp as a business; if you don't actually add anything substantial, if you don't offer something useful that will bring in customers (members) then you'll fail.

Setting up a corp in EVE is vastly different from starting a guild in any other MMO. All of a sudden you're susceptible to wardecs, corp thieves and all that AND you become responsible for any newbie that joins you. If your corp is **** (for lack of a better word) and because of you being incapable of helping/teaching that newbie he quits the game or becomes just another zero-knowledge grindbear then you're the one to blame. Mind you, that's my take on it and the vast majority of corps out there ARE **** and somehow people seem to be ok with it ("people are stupid" applies here).

If you do want to go for it make SURE you pick a goal/playstyle you like and have mastered, LEARN about combat/pvp mechanics, wars and all that. Put in effort to offer something that's actually useful to your members (don't think in goods/isk, think in playstyle, knowledge, training, teamwork). Being just another generic "we do whatever" zombie/alt corp that never goes anywhere in the sea of other mediocre stuff won't get you very far.

Excuses are the refuge of the weak.

Greygal

Redemption Road

Affirmative.

Likes received: 508

#19 - 2011-09-09 17:28:57 UTC | Edited by: Greygal

I've been a director in my corp for well over a year... I'm pretty much the acting CEO at the moment as our current CEO's real-life job has left him little time to play, and none of the other directors want to deal with the boring stuff like smoothing bitter vet egos, diplomacy, hand-holding new players, and organizing stuff.

There is already a lot of really good solid advice in this thread, especially regarding roles and game play... I'm gonna focus on some of the touchy-feelly stuff of running a corp mostly below

The first and best thing you can do is simply accept the fact that the first casualty of ANY plan is, in fact, the plan itself

Never forget you are dealing with real people, who have real emotions and attachments, egos and generosity and faults.

Be absolutely in control of yourself and your reactions, and never try to control your members. Persuasion is far more effective

Get REALLY REALLY REALLY good with spreadsheets. Seriously good with them. Google Docs is awesome - and mostly in-game-browser friendly!

Get a forum where you can post all kinds of information answering as many questions as you can think of, and keep a list of links to your forum's posts and posts in this forum and the evelopedia in your in-game notepad. That way, every time someone asks a question, you can post a link to the answer immediately. It makes you look so on top of things!

Embrace the enthusiasm of your new members, whether they are new players or years-in-the game. Everyone wants to be part of something bigger than themselves, create as many opportunities as you can however small or large to integrate your members into the whole, and feel like they make a difference.

Don't let real-life family members into your corp. Seriously, don't. Regardless of how good your real-life relationship may be, eventually the line between real life and Eve will be crossed in some sort of ugly dramatic way. Trust me on this.

When push comes to shove, when things are at a crisis point, make a decision and stick to it, even if it is the worst possible decision you could have made. It is better to make a bad decision than make no decision - or worse, multiple decisions that you don't stick to any of.

It's not about making everyone happy, it's about making everyone feel like they matter.

And finally, don't hesitate to ask for help and advice from your members. The people in a corporation are ultimately its greatest, most priceless, and most irreplaceable assets. Take their advice then make your own decision.

Best of luck in your corporate leadership endeavors, I hope this helps in some small way!

GG

What you do for yourself dies with you, what you do for others is immortal.

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Lightning Squad Snuffed Out 764
Zangorus Lightning Squad Snuffed Out Likes received: 764	#20 - 2011-09-09 17:44:04 UTC 8 Get friends that you trust as directors , running corp alone is tough and hard to recruit. Like my comment and recieve 1 million isk ingame!