I will not promote: I want to do business. Where should I start?

Hi everyone, I want to do business. Although I have a business background, I still don’t feel confident enough, and I feel like I don’t have much practical knowledge about actually starting and running a business. I’m genuinely at the very beginning and haven’t started anything yet. Before I begin this journey, I want to learn from people who have actually started businesses and understand how experienced founders think about starting one. Some questions I have: • How do I know whether a business idea is actually worth pursuing? How do I research and validate an idea before putting significant time or money into it? • How important is the idea itself? Is the idea the most important part, or are the customer, the problem being solved, product or service, execution, sales, distribution, or something else more important? • As someone with a business background, can I start a business in a completely different field where I don’t have an academic or professional background? If so, how should I approach learning that industry? • When starting your first business, is it better to take an existing business idea or model that already works and create your own version, or should you try to come up with something genuinely unique? I have both kinds of ideas in mind, so I’m curious which approach makes more sense for a first time founder. • If you are building something that already exists, how different does it actually need to be? How can you take an existing idea and improve or differentiate it rather than simply copying it? • What are the biggest mistakes new founders commonly make, and what do you wish you had known before starting your first business? • What books, courses, resources, or other things would you recommend learning before starting? I know its too many points but im just putting my thoughts into a post I’m genuinely at the very beginning and haven’t started anything yet. I want to understand how experienced founders think about starting a business and what they prioritize before taking that first step.