Successfully baking with sourdough 1-2 times a week. From the top of my head, some things that has elevated my results...
Once you have a starter, keep feeding it with organic rye grain flour, you might need to try different brands. Bake in a cast iron pot, with lid initially, the crust will be unreal.
I'm also approaching 40 and dusted of some old books from uni last year. One of which was about linear algebra, it was incredibly dense and proof heavy and I remember not understanding what I was doing, mostly remembering formulas. Then I watched 3Blue1Brown video series on linear algebra and things just clicked, almost 20 years after that first algebra class :)
Once you have a starter, keep feeding it with organic rye grain flour, you might need to try different brands. Bake in a cast iron pot, with lid initially, the crust will be unreal.