Before ascending, I had all chairs at lv99 and shop multiplier at lv47. I ascended at company lv500 and used 100 rubies to get x2 or 40 Cosmic Shares (CS).

I used CS to raise shares to +9x and reduce decoration price cut -5%. That turned out to be overkill. At company lv5 I had unlocked all decorations and maxed out most of them.

The important things to raise are Skip-o-rama and Level-Skip. While Skip-o-rama starts at 25%, it only goes up 3% per level, and the cost increases with each level. When Skip triggers, your company rises Level-Skip number of levels instead of 1, allowing you to not only quickly reach high levels to ascend again, but also to get skill points quickly again. Super important if you want to grind ascension.

It's going to cost time to get anywhere, and you need to invest that if you want to be ready for the weekly tournament, because you will gimp yourself for some hours after ascending.

Oh, and an auto clicker absolutely needed to level up those girls over and over and over and over...