Since the OP is concerned with a question in general rather than asking for specific advice for their situation, I’ll address that. Also, for Flying_Monk, please note that I’m taking about things in general and not implying anything about your situation.
Is it possible for someone born into poverty to succeed with a great idea?
There are many issues here, one which hasn’t been discussed is the question of how poverty plays into this. One of the problems with poverty is that people don’t grow up learning money management skills. There was an interesting book which followed several sisters who lived in poverty, on and off welfare, and their struggles. It talked about how they would sometimes get money, but through poor choices wouldn’t be able to keep it.
For example, one of the sisters had a job as a nurse aid in a nursing home, and had managed to buy a car and spent too much for it. Her boyfriend got drunk and wrecked it and they weren’t able to afford another one. The job was off the bus line and so she lost her job. Other times, when they would get a little money, then they would just spend it.
My family was not that poor, although we only became (lower) middle class by about the time I was in junior high. By nature of how the school district was divided, even though our neighborhood was working class, I went to elementary school, junior high and high school with the richest kids in Salt Lake, and definitely felt the difference. However, that was nothing compared to my parents who both grew up on poor farms, with my father’s family in dire poverty and my mother a little better, although with six children, they only had enough money for her to own one skirt for school, for example.
My parents managed to get into middle class, but wouldn’t pay for school for us, so it took me eight years to get though my engineering job while working full time nights for several of those years to save enough money to pay for the rest. Over one of the summers, I remodeled half of a duplex for my mother and she took that instead of rent. I would work all night, go home for an hour of sleep, then to class, back to home, more sleep, up to study then off to work.
I managed to succeed in business, but my younger brother, though, is homeless (with untreated mental problems) and one sister has never worked very long at one place.
My cousins grew up in poverty, and the oldest tells me he always carries around gum with him now to remind him of when he was so poor he couldn’t afford even that. He’s now a successful businessman, but several of his siblings are still struggling with money. One of my other cousins was just like the poor family described above, and anytime he got any money it would just be gone.
Another problem is that when you grow up poor, then you often don’t see how other people succeed. I was the only boy in my age in my neighborhood who graduated from high school, let alone go on college. In contrast to that, my friend’s family was highly educated and it was always assumed that he would get a graduate degree.
There was an excellent series in the New York Times a while back about class in America, and one of the articles talked about a lawyer who grew up in poverty in West Virginia, and the the struggle she had fitting into first university, then law school then professional society. She was quoted as saying that while we think anyone can grow up in America to become president, it is too much of a gap for people from poverty.
There are people who do get out of the poverty mindset (and again, I’m not saying anything about the OP, this is just a general discussion), but it’s not easy.
Next is the question of where to learn the skills necessary to succeed in business, and even which skills are necessary.
There are people who do it, and those I know, like my successful cousin, do it though persistence and hard work; two qualities which seem to be a prerequisite for success regardless of status at birth.