Industry: Beginning

Last night Khori handed me a review of current industrial and research capability of my corp, Those Once Loyal.

I had chosen the corp name shortly after I left The Black Company a little over a year ago. The concept of loyalty had been an important one to me, however the betrayal of the Caldari command during my time as a ground pounder and subsequent disillusionment with Company direction had raised some fundamental questions to me. By tradition Company leadership had transferred from Captain Bloodpetal to...words escape me to describe him. A man who'd been at the founding of the Company during its incarnation in the space surrounding New Eden; had been Captain for a time; stepped down and assumed the role of Archivist; somehow, through ways I am not aware of, appointed as the Master Sergeant; then during a closed meeting was appointed the Captain. An appointment that stank of the betrayal of Company founding values and principles.

But that story is for another time.

Right now I was focused on the meager scientific and industrial capacity of my corp.

It didn't look good. A handful of production capability and twice that Tech II blueprint invention.

Enough to pay for Khori's pilot license and have some profit leftover.

I'd hired Khori sometime ago based on her sales pitch of industry work. She'd showed me that she was worth the investment and maintenance of her pilots license which was good enough for me to take her aboard.

I'd had a taste of what industry done right could do and I wanted more.

The cash wasn't easy. Half the time it was more of a logistical pain in the ass than any real difficulty in the manufacturing.

The other half of the time was dealing with the inevitable market hounds and competition. This was where I had a crash course in retailing and what return on investment really meant.

Early in Khori's career, she'd been manufacturing and retailing ship rigs. While rigs are easy to make, the margins weren't stellar and tended to move slow.

Having a couple hundred million sitting on the market did no good things for my mood. The best situation is where Khori was able to liquidate the entire stock in one bulk sale at a discount. Sure, it cut into margins but it also freed up that capital to reinvest.

Given my headquarters distance to Jita and current status fighting for the Minmatar Republic, relying on that trade hub for supplies was out of the question...until I heard about Push Industries.

Push was a relative newcomer to the courier market long dominated by Red Frog Freight. I'd given one of their lower rate specials a shot and never looked back. Outstanding service, reasonably fast, it's been nothing but a good experience.

This development led to the hiring of a sales and acquisition agent in Jita. One that has paid off extremely well. The ability to acquire certain, rarer materials in bulk quantities has easily justified my agents hiring.

For obvious reasons I will not divulge my agents name.

Back to those numbers. I'm going to be rapidly expanding my operations soon, upgrading the corp POS to a medium and acquiring more labs and manufacturing arrays as well as hiring more pilots and agents to keep said facilities running 24/7.