Starting a Successful Company

Day 813, 22:17 • Published in USA USA • by NoneSuch

Like most people in eRepublik I'm betting that you have always dreamed of running your own company. It's human nature; money and power, power and money. What most people do not know is how to start one and then keep it profitable. I'm also going to be writing this with respect to future industries the admins keep briefing us over. I'm not writing this for myself, I'm writing it for you, so pay attention.


- Table of Contents -
- Picking an Industry, Quality, and Country
- Hiring, Firing, and Hiring
- Keeping Ahead of the Competition through Integration
- Hints, Tips, and Tools
- Investing (Still unsure but want to be a part of it all)
- How to Earn 20 Gold Fast (Bonus Material)

- Picking an Industry, Quality, and Country -

First thing's first, what industry do you want to be a part of? What most everyone in eRepublik wants to do is own a weapon company and become some sort of massive weapons dealer. It's a pretty glamorous job title I admit. But you need to look at this objectively. I'll be completely honest, don't even bother looking at the Gift/Diamond or Ticket/Oil industries, they won't get you anywhere. If this is your first company and you don't have much funding then I'd also suggest crossing the Hospital and Defense System industries off your list as well.

This leaves us with the Food/Grain, Weapon/Iron, and Housing/Wood industries. With those in mind, now lets figure out the quality of the company. This is going to depend solely on how much Gold you have and are willing to invest. If all you have is 20 Gold then I do not suggest that you go off on your own yet. If you have 40 Gold, I still would not recommend that you buy 2 companies or purchase a Q2. It's a good rule of thumb to have between 5 and 10 Gold to spare after buying your company; the more the better.

Quite obviously in every industry the higher quality your company is the more profit you will make. It's simple supply and demand. Q1 food manufactured good someone can produce so it is going to be in massive supply, but since everyone needs to eat daily it's in massive demand. I've never stayed in the food industry longer than a week, but from what I gathered it's just not worth the time/effort at lower qualities. As ironic as it might seem, the food industry is for the pro's that know how to pull every cent they can out of their employees. So long as we're crossing food off of our list you might as well cross of grain too. The reason I don't suggest starting a grain company if you're not starting a food company along with it is actually semi-confusing so I'll explain it later.

This leaves us with Weapons/Iron and Housing/Wood. Company Chart According to that chart 1/3 of all eRepublik companies are weapon companies. The weapon industry is a good industry to start off with so long as you're willing to make a loss at first at put up with the constant competition. If you absolutely must be involved in the gun-making business one way or another then here's my advice: If you're going to start with a Q2 or lower company then choose weapons, if it's Q3 or higher I highly recommend going iron. If you want to be involved in a smaller market with less competition then go with Housing/Wood. It costs at most $60 to buy all the wood you need to make 1 house and if you know how to find good employees then you can make some "ok" money doing it. The housing industry is going to skyrocket once the admins make all items perishable over time. This means a single house won't be around forever and consumers will finally have to buy houses just like they buy food.

This last part may confuse a lot of you, but choosing a country is just as important as choosing an industry. Things to consider when choosing a country are: population, unemployment, number of companies, how low the currency is valued, income taxes, and domestic price of whatever it is you're producing. Sound like a lot? It is. It's crucial that you understand how all of these details work together...

Higher population = more workers
Higher unemployment rate = more available workers willing to work at lower wages
Lower number of companies = less domestic competition
Lower valued currency = cheaper wages relative to your own
Lower income taxes = more income for you (the eUS's 20% income tax is horrible)
Higher domestic price of whatever it is you're selling = more money for you

Those are just some of the things I like to consider. Don't let language be a barrier either, all that you and your employees need to know are numbers. Numbers are universal.

One last thing to keep in mind is that the admins are going to be creating at least 3 more industries in the coming months. Namely, tank, artillery, and helicopter industries. It might end up being worth it to keep saving up and buy one of those companies right when they come out.

- Hiring, Firing, and Hiring -

Once you have your company you need to fill it with employees. The best thing to do when finding employees is to go to the job market and go through every single skill level. Divide the highest offered wage per skill by the skill. Hypothetically the highest offered wage for a 5 skill is $15, divide $15 by 5 and you get a wage to skill ratio or 3. You want to find the lowest ratio possible! This ensures you the most bang for you buck. So put the majority of job offers at that skill at that price, anywhere between 5 and 8. Next spread out the remainder of job offers between all the skills. It's smart just to have a little variety and see what happens.

When hiring lower skilled employees a fun thing to keep in mind is that they gain skill faster than higher skilled employees. This means that over time they will be making more product at the same price as before, so if you were making a loss with them before you may end up making a hefty profit off of them in the long run. When hiring 7+ employees you may never know what you'll end up with. It could be a fresh 7 skill bringing your profits down or some old 11 skill that could care less about finding a decent paying job and you get all that extra dough.

Another thing is, don't be afraid to fire people. ERepublik is just a game and no one on here has eKids to feed back at home. If their wellness is consistently low and you're losing money, just dump 'em, it's not worth it.

- Keeping Ahead of the Competition through Integration -

What does that even mean? It means be smart. You need to continuously be finding ways to break away from the competition. You need to go out of your way to buy the absolute cheapest raw materials on the world market. You need to open up your own raw material company, sell those raw materials on the market, and buy up cheaper materials with you manufacturing company so that you can sell your raw materials at a higher price. The best investment you can ever make is opening up a Q2+ raw material company. Don't bother buying a Q1 raw material company guys, so many other people have you beat it's just not fair for the little guy. Also, you shouldn't have to bother buying market licenses, if you did your country research at the beginning you're already selling in the best possible market.
I'm getting a little tired, sorry... But in short, you want to expand within your own market as much as possible pushing other companies out of the way in all the ways that you can. Every cent counts.

- Hints, Tips, and Tools -

ErepTools
Company Calculator
Interactive Map

Those are all the tools I've ever used while running my companies. Tools are great for when you're too lazy to use excel spreadsheets... never use excel spreadsheets. They will demoralize the hell out of you. Here are the tips:

-Give pay raises sparingly, if they don't ask then don't give. Even giving them a raise of $0.20 might peak their curiosity and ask for more of realize that you've been paying them horribly
-Choose a market and stay with it. Don't start weapons one day and then food the next. If you have to, start a new org and make a new weapons company or upgrade your current companies.
-Don't be afraid to ask for help. There are so many people out there with Gold they aren't using, ask for "personal favor" to upgrade your company and pay them back later
-Don't start a company in the eUS, too much competition
-Currency value, the lower the better
-Income taxes, they hurt way more than you think

- Investing -

So you have 10 or 20 Gold that you want to put to work but are still unsure that you can handle your own company. Chances are that you have a friend with a company that would be more than happy to let you become a partner. This increases that persons income should they happen to upgrade their current company with your Gold and they will thank you with dividends. Be sure it's someone you trust though. If need be, write up a contract. Here's another article that goes into further detail.

Investing

- How to Earn 20 Gold Fast -

I'm afraid that if you want this part of the article you're going to have to PM me. Just PM me asking how to earn the 20 Gold and I'll get back to as soon as possible with the answer. This isn't a scam or anything like that, it's just it wouldn't be very... gamely if I gave it to the public.

And do me a favor please, if I PM you back and you get your 20 Gold, please comment and let other people know that I'm not trying to scam them.