You start by doing easy missions, with an inexpensive ship. If you have friends in the game, they can front you with enough ISK to leapfrog to a better ship. When I was active, I gave out 1M ISK to each of a few new players a week. With a few billion in the bank, it was a drop in the bucket. I was essentially paying forward the same favor to me, many times.
I also helped newbies with the more difficult starting missions (again, someone did the same for me when I couldn't finish a mission). But, I had to give it up when griefers (GoonSwarm, I'm looking at you) thought it was funny to create a new character, and lure you out to help with a mission. They took advantage of a loophole in game mechanics, so their more experienced buddies could swoop in and gank you. It never happened to me, but I heard about enough instances that I stopped participating in missions except for players I knew for awhile.
As you build experience (and standing), you get more difficult missions, which pay better. As you learn more skills and buy/build better ships, you can survive the more difficult missions. You can also make a lot of ISK selling the salvage from ships you destroyed during your missions.
I like your style- that’s exactly where I’m headed. There are a lot of decent folks out there in the EVE universe. The more of us the better.
And yeah, the CFC/Goon bunch are a love-hate relationship. Inspires more caution, that’s for sure. EVE teaches you very quickly to trust, but verify. And to always watch your six.
thanks