Starts in mars orbit. One scenario has a dozen colonists in mars orbit ready to transfer into 3-four person landers. While in orbit they can operate robots on the surface to prepare their first habitats.
They land in stages. The first four are our canaries. They must survive on the surface of mars for some length of time before the other eight land. That time would include after they've built and tested shelters that are not the landers they arrived in. The ship will either return to earth with those eight or return empty (using ion drives.) It is not anticipated that those eight will not land on mars. While in orbit the eight will work telerobotically with the four in preparing assets on the surface. This means the first four do not have to wait 26 months for helping hands which will shortly arrive on the surface with them.
Several landers will be prepositioned on mars in a circle about the expected size of the landing ellipse. The lander will be their habitat for a few days. Reserve supplies will be in orbit ready to land in case the colonists land too far away from the prepositioned supplies.
Temporary shelters will be quickly dug into the ground with life support for all twelve. These could be the foundation for some local governance. Permanent personal habitats built on the personal property of each will be a shared community effort that will take months to complete. This first personal habitat is a starter home of a standard design. It is expected they will sell these to colonists that follow and move into homes of their own design at some point but the community is not required to build these new homes for other than profit (free enterprise works and economic laws apply universally.) Total life support built into habitats by the first dozen will allow many dozens more to arrive and survive which then build for the next group. Each personal habitat will have life support for at least four (and emergency supplies for many more short term.)
Each colonist will be a land owner. They will each have their own starting supplies. However, the landers are the property of the transportation company (or the company they bought tickets from.) What happens to them? Go ahead and speculate. It makes little difference once they have done their purpose (they were fully paid for in any case.) Once on mars, how they got there is of less concern. Living on mars is not getting to mars.
Of all the things they bring to mars the most likely to be too little is power (This doesn't have to be and shouldn't be.) Power is required for everything including things not anticipated so it is likely it will run short (no matter how much they have.) We must over supply the first colonists in everything, not just power.
We know how to live on mars, but only experience living on mars will fill in the details. We know we need water (which is abundant on mars.) We know we need oxygen and buffer gases (easily obtainable as long as they have enough power.) We worry about lower gravity the same way we worried about various speed barriers (many happened before the sound barrier.) Radiation on mars turns out to be less of a problem than we originally imagined (a lot of over imagination goes on, but that's a good thing as long as it doesn't lead to paralysis.) Even if the worst of our imagination is true people can still live on mars even if life expectancy is shorter but there is no reason to imagine it would be.
As the community grows with more colonists arriving (it doesn't cost anything and you arrive with valuable assets) things will grow in value and start to be recognizable as a growing economy. It won't be just one company being entrepreneurial it will be every individual. The most obvious diversity will be the crops they each choose to grow (seeds are the easiest thing to get to mars) and trade with each other. Free enterprise insures they will have an abundance and avoids the tragedy of the commons.
Forget Antarctica, people that dream of reasons we can't live on mars wouldn't survive in the Dakotas.
Communities of any size have to be concerned about the rate of consumption of various things. This does not require central planning. It does require planning. Each person is responsible for their own life and would certainly do planning for that, but let's look at an example of how this would work with water.
On average, about a liter of water can be had from heating a cubic foot of mars dirt. This will keep one person alive for one day but most people would use more than that each day. Each habitat will have the power and equipment and storage to produce water. Does that mean nobody will buy water? Absolutely not. Economic laws still operate on mars. Somebody will specialize in producing and storing large volumes of water for sale to others that will buy it when they miscalculate production for their personal needs. Someone will anticipate the need for no other reason than there is a profit in it for them.
Air is no different except once you have water and power you have air. Running out of air is a Darwin award. Colonists will be smart enough not to do it (the remaining ones anyway.) Some company will distribute air bottles the way we distribute propane gas in my neck of the woods. Emergency rations (not to be used normally) will be standard in every home.
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