Money!

Thirty minutes of ratting last night and another 60 minutes this morning and I made almost 3 million ISK. Good start, but I need more! I figure I'll rat every opportunity this weekend and head back to Pelille with my Badger full of minerals next Monday or Tuesday morning. Take my time and scout properly.

Meanwhile back in Pelille... my industrial character has taken to mining while skills are training and funds are low and I found myself rather enjoying it a bit. Not sure if I'm cut out for large scale mining, but I can see the attraction of looking for the good ore and mining it before some pirate or rat comes along.

I've been seriously considering my manufacturing business plan. There are two types of manufacturing characters out there: ones that do it as needed for personal or corp use, and others that do it for sale to make a profit. My goal is the latter one.

So how does one make a profit? There are two factors to consider: profit margin and volume. If the profit margin is low and selling volume is low, profit is going to be low and slow in coming. The goal is to maximize both as much as feasible. The profit margin can be maximized by skill training product efficiency like I'm doing and buying/mining minerals at low prices, while the selling volume will require some research to find out what sells and how much it costs to make. No point in blowing all my minerals on some big cruiser that no one wants to buy at a profitable price.

Plus there is the need for initial investment of ISK to get going. Blueprint Originals are pricey (e.g. 40 million for the Caracal Cruiser BPO) and while Blueprint copies are more affordable, they have limited number of times they can be used. I'm going to start with the Heavy Missile Launcher because I already have the BPO and I know it sells as I have sold 4 of them recently. I'm also going to start looking on Escrow for BPCs that I can afford to get the money flowing in and out.

For initial investment, I'm also going to look into selling shares, either "virtual" ones to friends in IPRC or real ones once I start the KODA Corp.

Its all very exciting!