In reality, it's not like that. Ideas don't grow on trees and many, many people fail multiple times before they succeed. There's no book on how to do it; there's no 1 way and what works for abc company didn't work for def company.
Find a day job; make some money.
Find an idea that your passionate about; code it - submit it somewhere (here is a good start) - show people / get them using it / get feedback. If your not passionate about it; no one else will be either.
Stick with it long enough / until you can determine if it's going somewhere or not.
Rinse / repeat until you find the success you want.
There are many stories where people start from literally nothing at all. And you never ever here all the work that goes into creating success (not to mention luck as well). Here's my favourite blog post about just grinding it out: https://www.groovehq.com/blog/lewis-howes-interview
Instead, start off by having a big goal but also one more modest - nothing too easy but not one that's too improbably to achieve. It's important to have small wins just as it is to have big wins. Everyday is an opportunity to improve things. Analyze what just happened and continuously improve and grow.
Personally, I knew of a person who lived in his van, who went on to become a famous photographer and earned millions. During his moment of success, he became arrogant and stop challenging himself. Eventually, his wealth faded away and he was back in his van. It was only after he started appreciating everything in his life and started to challenge did he see his fortune come back again.
I believe that you're destined for greatness. Your situation is temporary and you can absolutely change it. Don't be depressed by someone else's success. Keep going.
One day near the end of his life, Mr. Picasso was dining at a café in France when an American tourist, and fan of his, approaches him. Bewildered, the tourist asks for a photograph, to which Picasso agrees. They get friendly, and before long, the tourist asks for a sketch. Being a big fan, and a man who's clearly done his homework on art, Picasso agrees, pulls out his fountain pen, and quickly sketches a portrait of the tourist on a napkin. The tourist, amazed, thanks Picasso and reaches for the napkin portrait, but Picasso moves it away, and without skipping a beat, says, "that'll be 15,000 francs." The tourist is shocked. He says, "but that doodle took you five seconds!" Picasso smiles, and replies, "no, it took me five decades."
You never hear about the work that goes into success, even the overnight success stories. Overnight success stories don't happen in one night. The easy answer is there are no easy answers. Keep working, keep pushing, and keep believing in the chance and the opportunity of the day before you. That's way more than many others on this planet ever get, so make the most of it.
Yeah, you probably are. So fix that. Step one, learn to code (better?), and get a development job. Do that for a bit, save some money, then figure out step 2. You can't change the past so don't let it unduly influence what you'll do next.
Baby steps.
Don't try to do big things. Do small things completely and with great care -- and celebrate those tiny victories.
You see, you never know where those tiny projects are going to eventually lead.
Google started off with a guy thinking "hey, what if you were to think of the world wide web like a graph -- I bet you could get better search results by ranking pages by the degree of incoming arcs".
It was actually a relatively small idea.
So just take some baby steps and see where they lead. And don't worry about stumbling and falling -- babies suck at walking.
Even the ones who will eventually win marathons.
My workaround? Comes from recognizing the following:
(1) In many ways, our "system" (not just the tech meritocracy cult, but our whole consumption-oriented society) is strongly predicated on promoting feelings of inferiority, "coulda-shoulda-woulda" and anxiety generally. It's it's main oxygen source, in fact. So whenever I feel myself feeling beset by these pangs and impulses, I try my best... to deny the system its "oxygen" by questioning the validity of these pangs and impulses. And looking instead for other sources of validation / motivation.
(2) More drily, there's a huge selection bias in all of these success stories. We nearly always hear about the winners, only very seldom about the failures. And even the "big" winners, talented though they are, might have been only "so-so" winners had it not been for certain twists of dumb luck.
Not to mention the legions of "so-so" winners (e.g. that total schmuck you know who just got a $30M B-round) who might otherwise just be regular devs, perpetual grad students, or slaving away at an investment bank right now, had they had the tragic misfortune of being born a few years later, or earlier.
(3) Finally, so some extent maybe I do suck, at least at this game. Or maybe I don't? Either way, a healthy amount of self-doubt isn't a bug, it's a feature -- and nearly omnipresent amongst people who are in any way trying to achieve their potential, and question the limits and rules set by others (as nearly any biography of successful people will tell you).
As such, when viewed properly and used properly, this kind of self-doubt can not only not be a straightjacket -- it can be an invaluable energy source.
Hang in there, do what you can now, and plan on what you can't right now.
Reading HN does that, mainly because all the shiny stories float to the top. Also stuff you work on never seems as shiny as something new you hear about (even if if yours really is cooler) mainly because you live your stuff 24/7 and all you see most of the time are the bugs you have yet to squash.
Since we are talking about this, just a little reminder for interested ppl, it's more important to practice meditation than only reading any book on mindfulness.
Meditation is mental training. Understand it by practising meditation. Also for us to note is that negative thoughts are a defilement of our mind, abandon it :)