People start side hustles that become businesses all the time so of course you can without either.
I started with a chunky vision, no connections or money and then got them. I went to an event and met the CEO of big company that gave us our first clients and travelled around networking, pitch events and meeting investors to raise money.
Most of the time you need them (I needed debt to start out) and having a network and money is a huge head start but people do it all the time without either.
Entrepreneurship best practices I always find a nightmare because everyone has such a different journey. There are no rules!
You can get the odd good advice but it’s like asking how someone won the lottery (maybe a bit more mathematical than that but the point is what works for someone rarely can be applied to another persons business/situation).
The reward and success for delivering a useful product people enjoy using is something a lot of people spend their careers striving for!
I would just improve that, keep working on other ideas in the background and it will give you great experience and a strong track record if you sell or maintain it. Doing that will make raising investment in the future much easier than if you just had a standard education.