One thing is that KSP uses manual staging, so timing of engine burns kind of matter. Is there features in vanilla KSP to automatically trigger staging?
It's straightforward though, the documentation is here:
During launch, the only real timing or skill involved was knowing when to start turning east (around 10km, imho), and knowing how to keep your speed below the thresholds that air resistance was eating your delta-V (there's charts around to help with that, but it's not hard).
If you're using solid rocket motors that can't be throttled or stopped, you have a bit less control.