Firstly I would have started 10 years ago. Yes, 10 years ago I started spending all my spare time online and over the years I have found it all out. But I never actually started any site. Why not? Because I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted autoresponders, clever sites, ad tracking, a product ... blah blah blah.
Yes, you "need" all that stuff. But it won't come on day 1. So I should have started a one page website 10 years ago hand crafted in notepad just with some affiliate links in. Just think how my income and tools would have grown if I had just done that.
So my advice is: no matter how small and crappy you think your free site with zero knowledge will look - DO IT. DO IT NOW. Whatever you create you can add to, change, enhance, modify. Use it as your learning curve. Then plough your income back into it. You have to invest in yourself and your "business" at some point! I've just spent £2000 this month - purely to move my whole game onto the next level... at some point you will have to really bite the bullet and say "I am no longer playing, this is working for me" - and BELIEVE in yourself!.
The other thing I'd have done is: sign up for adsense the very second it appeared. I'd have not spent hours/days/weeks looking for affiliate programs to sign up for, spending hours finding something I thought my site could promote, then getting the code, sending them traffic only to have 0 conversions.
No - unless you are starting out with a very tight niche then just use adsense on the damned thing. Site1 - you need money right! You can't be too precious about your site. Treat your first site(s) as learning grounds, experiments. . . and a way to prove that internet marketing DOES work and you CAN do it.
I did, however, install the best stats I could find - and now I've found the best free stats package in the whole world
AddFreeStats Free web stats, free website statistics - check that out (it's not an affiliate link) - there's even a piece of code that you put on your site that tells you where your adsense clicks go to.
To me: Your site stats are King. Get them. Even if you've no idea why right now do it. When you do find out how stats can improve your site and sales, at least that way you've got some historical data to check out!
Good luck
E