Take the time to choose a good colony spot
From what I've noticed, there are currently no bonuses or penalties for where you choose to set up your colony. Therefore, I choose a lake or river zone for construction, in case there is an update that will require water from you for your colonists in the future. Plus I like the aesthetics.
I noticed that until you place your flag the zombies will not attack. Therefore, do not rush to look for the perfect place.
Build and recruit your first colonists slowly
I start with three colonists - two for picking berries and one as a guard. You can only hire colonists if there is a bed for them, so make sure you craft the beds first. As I do - I create a separate building and fill it with beds, about 15 at most.
Council: do not hire colonists from the beginning until you have food, as they will die quickly.
Plants and food production
As I said above, I started with two berry pickers. I like to plant berries on a 5x10 plot next to each other, so when I hire wheat farmers, everything is mapped to 10x10 wheat fields.
Berries are healthy because they don't have a growing cycle like wheat, which grows for three days. The disadvantage of berries is that they only produce 0,6 units of food per bush, and each colonist requires 5 units per day.
Grow wheat, make bread, and gather supplies
It is important to build a wheat farm as soon as possible, since you need to produce 12 food units between berry harvests.
Your colonists may eat the wheat after it is harvested, but it is ultimately waste, so it's best to make 3x bread out of it. All you have to do is build a whetstone for the colonist to grind into flour, and build a baker's oven to turn it into bread.
Once you reach this point, you should increase the yield to three wheat fields so that at least 1 field is harvested every day.
Defend Against Zombies
Zombies are not a big problem at the moment - if you have extra resources, you can just walled up your city. Now zombies cannot damage walls; they also cannot climb walls of two or more blocks.
You can also set up security at the entrances to your bedroom.
