[mjmcb3]

You seem to have imbibed a particular economic myth, and are now choking on its very prominent bones. Very few of us are destined to have even $1 million of disposable income in our hands at any one time. Making big bucks is primarily a combination of luck and the willingness to embrace risk.

Richard Branson is a rare example of a self-made billionaire; he started in the 1970s and leveraged his small investments into larger ones. But make no mistake, he took substantial risks; he could easily have lost the lot, like so many others did. The only reason we have heard of him is because he was the 1 in 1000 who made it.

The failure rate for small businesses, online or not, is 99%. Only 1 in 100 business survive beyond five years, and many do not even make it beyond the first. The key message from those who did make it is to ask around, workshop your ideas, to share and not hide your ideas; let others help you to success. The Australian entrepreneur Dick Smith [not a billionaire, but certainly a man with 'fuck you' money] asked lots of successful business people for tips, and found [to his surprise] that they were always willing to offer advice and to share their tips for success.

Very few people know anything about starting a business, let alone something entrepreneurial. As others here have said, reach out to the people around you. Find people with that experience, ask them what they learned, including the mistakes. Given the right approach, they will love to bore the pants off you with their war stories.