At the start of the game I tend to:
Set all taxes just under 50%
Education to max
Crime fighting to max
Defence spending around middle
Cut naval maintenance funding
Raise tariffs to max
Sort out imports, close unprofitable factories
Split pops where possible in RGOs to maximize output
That should put you on a fair positive. I tend to industrialize fairly slowly at the start, focusing on railroads, steel and lumber factories. If you don't want to go bankrupt, don't splash so much cash! Getting in to heavy debt at the start can be bad, because high debt reduces your income. For small countries, spending enormous amounts of money you don't have can result in your entire income being used to pay off the interest of your debt alone. Take things slow is my advice ^^ Once you have a stable industrial base, and a good income, you can start to really get going. Also, I advise researching lots of industry techs at the start. They give excellent bonuses to production efficiencies which will really help your cash flow.
You might want to try playing as France. They can be a bit daunting to a new player, but tbh France is pretty easy to manage (early on anyway!), starts on a good income and can industrialize pretty rapidly. If you decide to try France, I suggest switching to the reactionary party as soon as you start. I find reactionary parties more suitable to new players than Conservatives or Liberals.
