I'll put it short. 1. Start at Nords 2. Get some recruits (20-30) 3. Attack Looters (NOT sea raiders, they will pwn you 5v20) 4. Upgrade your Nord recruits to footmen, rinse and repeat until all your troops are footmen & trained footmen 5. Go to Swadia (or vaegir, but they also have sea raiders) 6. Attack Forest Bandits, until your troops are all warriors 7. Go back to Nord, or Rivacheg of Vaegirs 8. You should have put 2 or 3 points in Prisoner Management Skill by now (remember, skill level cap is 1/3 of its respective stat - ironflesh and power strike caps at 1/3 of your STR, prisoner management at 1/3 of CHA, training at 1/3 of INT, so on) 9. Farm Sea raiders. They drop nice loot, so equip them, sell them, whatever you want. 10. Get your troops to Veterans. They sometimes spawn with blunt weapons, meaning you can "knock out" sea raiders sometimes. After you press tab and click continue on the casualties screen, you'll be directed to the troop management screen if you/they have any prisoners. Take as many sea raiders as you can as prisoners. 11. Go sell your prisoners to a ransom broker, who may or may not be found at nearby towns. Usually you can find one after visiting 2-3 towns. 12. Rinse & repeat 10 and 11. Make sure you don't upgrade any veterans to huscarls yet, because only veterans have blunt weapons and they cost waaay less upkeep than huscarls. 13. After half an hour or so, you should have some money. Go to Boyar Meriga and do quests for him by asking if he has any tasks for you. Do this until you have 0 or more relationship with him.(you can see relationship by putting your cursor over his face) 14. Get 10,000 denars. If you haven't done so already, repeat 10 & 11 until you do. Go to Rivacheg, and talk to the guild master (choose walk around the streets option, and walk around until you find him. He will always be standing still) You have the option to buy lands for an enterprise in the town. Choose that option, and choose 'dyeworks and weavery'. 15. If you have 3500 denars left over, go to Curaw. Talk to the guild master there, and build an ironworks.
No srsly, you should now have a decent income, so that the weekly income report might end up with a positive now. You are free to do whatever you want from now on. You can continue to farm until you get dyeworks in every city (it is the most profitable but beware that some Swadian cities and all Rhodok cities don't get you profits very often), or work as a mercenary until you weaken a kingdom you want to take over, or just join a kingdom straight away. your destiny is in your hands.
P.S. Swadian Knights are OP, so after you take a decent castle with your Huscarls (you should upgrade your veterans once you join a faction), you should garrison all your huscarls and start training Swadian units up to Knights. This will win you unwinnable odds on the field, up to 1v10 I think.