Why not just keep yourself as the referral and share whatever money you get with everyone? Is that against the rules or something?
I joined as the nation of Copperblazes. I got into The Knights Radiant and they seem to have their shit so well together, I'll probably just stay there for the foreseeable future.
If anyone else joins after this post, spawn in North America, it's currently the most profitable place, coal and iron prices are high right now.
Here is some of the important stuff I've learned that wasn't in any of the basic guides I read:
As a brand new nation, basically all you do is sell resources, and nobody can attack you. You do not need power to produce resources, and you're immune to attack for longer than it takes to enlist a military to capacity. So you can get rid of those buildings, and use the slots to make even more resources if you want.
A big limit on your early growth is the cooldown to buy a new city. The faster you build your second city the faster you can get your 3rd city. Alliances know this, and will pay for your new cities because it's cheap for them and greatly speeds your growth.
When you build a power plant, don't do something stupid like buy a coal plant because you have a coal mine. Do the math: sell coal, buy oil, and have an oil plant. Trade is free and instant, it's even more powerful than it is in real life, every resource decision should be checked against the market prices.
Once you've joined an alliance and decided to leave beige, raiding is a good way to make money. You can start going to war with defenseless inactive nations with no army or alliance. More soldiers means more money, so you might want to build every single soldier that you can. It's a game of finding and jumping on the most profitable targets, you can put a lot of planning into it.