EVE New Citizens Q&A

Hey guys! I'm wondering how to get my corp to pay for itself?

I personally don't care to generate money off of my corp as I am independently wealthy. However, my corp has become a definite ISK sink. I can afford it right now, but I really wanna mature my corp into an entity that can... well, pay for itself. I have a few (like, 12) core members who are with the program, however we're active at different times and recruiting has turned into a NIGHTMARE. I have more turnover than WalMart!

I set my tax rate to 5% thinking it would attract mission runners. But apparently even 5% is too high, and mission runners also want free ships and ammo.

Miners don't want to actually mine with the corp so that the corp can build things; instead they just want to mine on thier Hulk/Orca dualbox and sell their ore to the corp so they don't have to fly to Jita.

Industrialists don't want to build things for the corp to sell, instead they just want the corp to spend 180 million ISK per month to keep the towers online so they can run their research and production lines 24/7.

It's very frustrating really. I started this project thinking: "Everyone will generate their own ISK and income using corp assets and capital - a sustainable portion of their profits will be returned to the corp, increasing the kitty. As the kitty grows, membership can do even more with corp assets, and return a higher yield." I was thinking, if anything, the corp would either grow in value slowly (0.5 - 1% per month?) or at least remain a sustainable operation that paid for itself (if not generating profit). Instead what I get is... everyone wants the corp to provide them with a platform from which they can do their own lone-wolf activities without ever thinking about giving back to the kitty.

Who works for who? Really now I've been more than fair.

If anyone has any ideas on how a corporation can generate self-sustaining income, please share. We are one of the many indy-mission-miner corps out there and we operate in amarr hi-sec.

This is the hardest thing about running a Corp without a doubt and I feel for you completely.

I've had minor personal experience with this sort of thing myself and I speak only from personal experience; I can't gaurentee that my information will be relevant or even helpful to you but its just what I've come to learn.

Corps in eve are such malleable, formless things it almost makes it impossible to give a general answer to your question. However I feel there are core "values" that are at the heart of every decent Corp in eve. Organisation, direction, motivation and trust.

Now these are not the be and end all by any stretch of the imagination but I like it think they help:

Organisation - The very first thing you need to learn/plan about your Corp is how it is organised. Are you a group of friends or a military hierarchy? How much freedom does each member have? What is expected of them? Its a complicated question but if you have no real answers it leaves your Corp with an identity crisis. A real solid understanding of how your Corp is structured infinitely adds to the bond between Corpmates

Direction - Essentially what does your Corp do? Is it a merc corp, is it a training Corp, is it a Corp just for the sake of a Corp? Sure its all very well taxing your members but if they have no real confidence in where that isk is going and no real sense of what the Corp actually does they will never invest their time and isk into it. This is something that should be clear and blazoned from the very start, make it part of your recruiting pitch, make it something your current members would be proud of being a part of and they'll even take some of the recruitment work off your hands.

Motivation - The first two points really feed into this but its worth mentioning again; the one thing you have to understand of your members is that they're not sheep (for the most part), they're real people, heck they are paying real money to be there. The only way you can weather any storm is once you have that strong base is to keep morale high, to remind people why they're doing things in a way that's not necessarily the most beneficial to them personally. Because at the end of the day that's a lot of what a Corp is, its the cessation of personal gain for the purpose of collective profit, if you can't encourage the former, the latter will never come. How transparent you want to be with this, from boilerplate rhetoric to including all members in your Corp's plans is entirely up to you but somehow, you have to make it happen.

Trust - No man is an island, and no Corp belongs to one man. You have to, and I can't stress this enough but you have to learn to delegate. In order for your Corp to be anything more than just a hobbyist waste of time for everyone you absolutely have to be able to compartmentalise the important tasks and GIVE THEM TO SOMEBODY. Yes it requires trust, yes that trust can backfire and yes that might make you lose a hell of a lot but imagine this: which do you think is the better off Corp, the one where the CEO trusts no-one, they make next to no isk and everyone is shifty eyes or the Corp that gets scammed by a dodgy director, gets over it, bonds over the experience and goes on to make tons of the iskies? In this whole tirade (dear lord this post has gotten long) the one thing I can be damn sure about is the galvanising force of being on the recieving end of Corp theft, nothing makes a bunch of strangers come together than some "other guy" stealing all their hard earned space-cash. I'm not saying you should dole out roles like they're party food but build a good system, have good goals, communication and inspire, promote trust from within and then reward those who come through and then, maybe then, you'll have a good Corp.

Not to end this as a pessimist, but as someone who enjoys the odd rolling an alt and joining a random player Corp I have seen many many Corps crash and burn. Just lasting long enough to say there is at least someone else in the Corp you can trust to understand it and help you run it is one of the few great victories you can have in Eve and that's only the first baby step.

Good luck!

I had a reply, but I'll give you the tl;dr because it was lost.

-Have members with compatible play styles and social interests. If your members get along and have a reason to play together they're more likely to stay.
-Missions are solo activities, generally. Mining benefits from group bonuses, but it's currently terrible in terms of its earning potential. Watch the drone nerf and plan mining accordingly, as this might make some types of mining far more profitable.
-Spread the wealth after accounting for overhead. While 5% tax rate is laughably low, players who feel they're getting nothing out of being in a corporation have no reason to stick around without social loyalties or shared activity.
-Unite around a timezone and an activity, if nothing else. Recruit people you actually get along with.

I wish you luck. There's a lot more to a corp as it gets larger in size, but at its core it's about giving people a reason to play EVE as a multiplayer game (which, really, is the only way to play it.)

Have a good knowledge of the PvP options available to your members. Get some PvP good fights with the more militarily minded of your members and as long as it doesn't go too balls up they will enjoy themselves. That will help you encourage more people into it.

Also putting someone who knows what they're doing in charge, as a sort of "General" takes the strain off you as well as gives them someone to ***** about who isn't you.

I played on and off for like 3 years.

1) I never had secure ISK income until the last few months so never PvP'd.
2) I never was very social on the game due to people being generally jerks
3) I was in many corps and never liked any cuz the CEO's and "old guard" were always even more jerks.

I have never lead a corp in EVE but I've made "guilds" and "clans" in other games.

Doesn't anyone do both?!

So, as PvPers, how do you guys support yourselves?

This attitude, right here, tends to cover the attitude of self-selected PvP pilots tend to have towards PvE: it's a means to an end, for funding subscriptions and ships, beyond any corporation or alliance subsidies you might have in place.

I actually don't think it's necessary to separate players more interested in one or the other, but it's highly recommended to attract pilots interested in your primary focus. If you're running a primarily PvE focused corp which occasionally roams to let off steam, your dedicated PvP players that want to be able to log in and have fleet mates will be bored. If you run a PvP focused corp, primarily PvE focused players will wonder what their taxes are subsidizing, and why their mining skills don't help them out in combat - this, right here, beyond the lack of profit, is why mining is discouraged: a PvE alt dedicated to mining has no use to a PvP focused player beyond semi-AFK income.

If your corp is large enough or first and foremost a social group, you can afford to be primarily social and take in players that are interested in different aspects of EVE. Smaller corps have a harder time, given limited membership, and thus they tend to function best when focused on a concept. Even large groups do well when they focus on a concept. For example, my corp occupies space and is bad at EVE.

There are actually several ways in which you can do PVE and PVP simultaneously and successfully, Although admittedly, you do need a core of at least 10 serious players who are willing to flex their three toon slots towards corp survival and success, instead of personal vainglory.
That's where the Concept, Focus, and well.. the Social Aspect comes in when it comes to Corp management.

Your OP does show the biggest hurdles of a highsec corp. It basically comes down to players who are under the mistaken impression that they have some Entitlement to corp assets simply because they became part of it, without contributing to those assets.
Said "players" are better off in solo corp or NPC corp, since whatever you try or do, you will never be able to please them, and they will either leave corp or you will be forced to boot them. It's better to have a lean, active corp, than one bloated with whingers and freeloaders.
Lean and active will probably mean you will have to focus on "Something", but then again, you're much more likely to be successful at it. And Being Successful is the biggest afrodisiac in EVE when it comes to drawing interested ( and interesting) players.

Real Corp Life being a social activity does mean you will "lose" income to the corp one way or another, either through time spent in corp ops, doing specific things having to do with your function in the corp, or simply through taxes. It is the art of CEO-ing and Directing to make those things viable and if possible fun. ( and of kicking out the freeloaders who are worried about "lost ISK" when that income is purely theoretical at best.)

Mining = Boring.
Doing a Drunken Mining Saturday Night Party under the direction of two or three dedicated miners with whatever you can fit a mining Laz0r on for the benefit of the corp and general !!Profit!!, killing whole belts, spanning the globe in a day as people come on or log for the night, smacktalking while someone does a creditable job as a DJ over Vent...... [/wipes a nostalgic tear]

And there's plenty of other Boring Stuff that can be made into something that bonds a corp together, it's all a matter of imagination and application. And yes, that includes Highsec Wardecs

As far as breaking even on costs, attatch a small fee to be able to do research on the POS, this fee should be able to cover the cost of fuel. If they complain, remove there roles to be able to use the POS for research, and as far as mission runners go, use the 5% tax to pay your industrialists to make ammo for them. Mission runners should buy their own ships IMO, they are using you if they don't. Miners should have corp mining ops about once a week or every other week, the minerals in turn should be used to support a ship replacement program. Also another option to fueling the POS is having the researchers donate PI or actual fuel blocks in exchange for the use of the tower.

The point is that a corporation is a group of people working to benifit each other, if someone doesn't like the fact they they just don't get everything for free, boot 'em, they will only bring your corp down.

PVP and Industrial/Mission Running characters coexhist happily in many corporations, it is a matter of getting the right blend. PVPer's with just enough tolerence (and maybe a little bribery) of PVEers, and visa versa. There is much to be said about a group of barely trained PVEers led by a few highly skilled PVPers, and the effects of such a group can truely be astounding.

As CEO of a corp it is their job to balance what they want to get from the corp itself, to drive the goals and motivations while letting others actually do much of the legwork involved. Appointing mining directers, FC's, and manufacturing experts is a good healthy thing for a CEO to do, trusting them is also very important. Let the mining director run mining ops and sell the ore directly to the manufacturers at a slightly discounted price, then the manufacturer sells products back to the corp at a discount, the mission runners/PVPer's buy the ships and ammo produced by the corp and help support future operations. Everyone eventually gets what they want, and profits for it. Small fee's for running a POS or buying ammo is something that should be the rule, not the exception.