Ok, maybe somebody else has the patience to enlighten you that being helpful and being optimal are different.
You don't seem to be a very smart person. And I only say this because you use words like "bizarre" and "delusional".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man .

Nobody said that gaining skills is bad or irrelevant, lol.

Successful entrepreneurs are opportunists. Industry experience helps, but isn't necessary. Hire management with the experience you're lacking. Know where the exit door is.

Last poster hit the nail on the head. I'm in the process of exiting my first successful venture after two "failures". I put failures in quotes because, while they were not extremely financially successful, I learned a lot over the course of 3-4 years while running those companies.

- Find an opportunity, preferably in an industry you either have experience, passion, or unique angle in....all three are obviously best.

- Either be an expert in marketing and sales or find someone that can be your business partner that is. I'm a product/operations/tech guy. It was hard to check my ego and admit it over the years, but a half-baked product with great marketing and sales will win out over a masterful product that no one knows about.

- Have a long-term plan for an exit that you revisit frequently. What is your end goal with the business? VC money? Bootstrap a lifestyle business? Investment with small growth over time? Each of these end goals will require a different business strategy and your existing people network may help you decide what direction to go here.

- Stop focusing on the perfect idea and figure out something that will make you money. You find this out by constantly writing ideas and testing them by reaching out to your potential consumers. So many of my peers made the mistake of spending countless hours and money building something that was neato but no one wanted to buy. If you don't understand your potential customers, you're wasting everyone's time.

At the end of the day, looking back, I pussy footed around thinking way too much about wanting to be an entrepreneur instead of just DOING. Look, you're probably going to fail at your first startups; hell, you might fail at your first 5 startups. At the end of the day, though, if you can learn from these experiences and put in the hours in an efficient way, you WILL succeed. There are literally infinite opportunities in business. Find one and go for it. Due to the earnout structure of the deal, I'm tied in with the company that acquired us for the next 18 months. In the meantime, I've got my idea book out and am already figuring out what my next venture is going to be.

One last point: the best move I ever made was to save up money and go at my venture full time. I'm sure there are a lot of people that can moonlight and build a company on the side of their main job, but, for me, having the crutch of a steady paycheck stunted my growth and held me back. There is no fire under your ass and better motivator than knowing that if what you're working on doesn't succeed, you have to go back to a 9-5. While, on average, I work more hours than I did at my desk job, I feel infinitely more free and alive than I ever did working for someone else.