Guys, I'm completely lost, please, how to produce serum? Thank you.
before you can produce you need to design a serum:
step 1 is to assign something to research in the "do something" menu while at the research lab: "assign research project". I find basic medical application is a good start since making money will be your primary concern for the first couple weeks or so.
step 2 help stephanie research that trait until it's done (also under "do something" at the research lab: "spend time researching in the lab", may take a day or two)
step 3 create a new serum design ("do something" in research lab: "create a new serum design") and choose the basic serum production and the trait you just finished researching).
step 4 now research your new design, same as step 1/2 except you are choosing the design you just created, should be on the right side of the window.
Now that you've designed, you can move on to actual production... you'll repeat these steps below to keep making more of the same serum, only returning to the above steps if you want to design another serum. It's a good idea to always keep something set as being researched since stephanie (and any other research employees) will continue researching with or without your help as you move on to other steps.
step 5 after your serum is designed and researched you go to the production lab and "do something" and "set production settings" click on the product line 1 button and it will give you a list of your researched serum designs, pick the one just researched (will be the only one on the list at this point) and change the auto-sell threshold to 0 (so that every serum produced will go right into the sales stockpile, otherwise if you want it to keep a certain number available for you to take into your inventory (or to be used as the auto daily dose for employees later on) you can increase this sales threshold. Keep in mind if you leave it at "none" instead of clicking the + to set it at 0, it won't automatically put anything into the sales stockpile, so make sure to set it to 0.
step 6 you need production supplies before you can produce, go to the main office "do something" and "spend time ordering supplies". the amount of supplies you have currently will be shown on the bottom left window "current raw supplies" so you'll know if you need more after producing.
step 7 go back to production lab, "do something" and "spend time producing serum in the lab", this will use up some of your raw supplies and depending on your skill level and the complexity of the serum may produce a batch of serums (it should at least get you a large portion of the way through completing a batch... you may need to order more supplies and do another round of production before the batch is finished).
step 8 once you have a batch produced (if you set your auto-sell threshold to 0) all those serums should now be in the sales stockpile. so if you go to the marketing division and "do something" and "spend time shipping doses of serum marked for sale", you will sell those serums and get the money in your account.
From there on just make sure you have your research team researching stuff... better serums sell for more money. once you have a feel for how much money is coming in and going out, you should consider hiring more staff. You can hire enough people for the company to make money without your intervention, (you need: supply people buying your supplies, production people producing the serums, marketing people selling everything in the stockpile, and you'll need someone in HR (they do the "spend time organizing your business" step in the main office which keeps the company efficiency up... the efficiency drives how much each of your employees do their jobs each step, so if company efficiency gets too low, your supply people won't be buying much, your production people will be slow to produce, etc...)
Once things are automated and the company's finances are on the rise you'll want to focus on asking your head of the research department (stephanie by default) how to unlock new traits to research, it will be under "special role actions" when talking to your head researcher. Then there will be some task involved which will lead to unlocking the next tier of serum traits you can unlock.
Also there is a "purchase new business policies" menu in the main office which lets you unlock things like more options when hiring (and better options) daily serum dose policy so you can keep your employees drugged up with your product, more efficient production so your batches are larger, the ability to hire more people (the initial cap is 5 employees), and a policy of enforcing work uniforms and progressively sluttier uniforms you can assign.