Wholesaling for the newbies

[Chris Villalobos]

Hello :) I just signed up recently and am very exited to hear from all of you.
quick intro about me, 20 y/o male , recently got fired from job, and is now starting my education into Real Estate.

I recently took a 3 day seminar from fortune builders about the basics of investing, they made it seem so good and brought up the concept of wholesaling and I was extremely curious. It was when they asked me to go to a private lender to borrow 35k to buy their program when I told them to take a hike. 

so now I decided to make an account here and learn as much as I can from you guys :). so now I'm still interested about wholesaling and think it's the best place to start, I'm just overwhelmed with information and I don't know what to do.

fortune builders told me to start looking for buyers first and ask what kind of properties they are looking for, this way i can build my buyers list, so i'm already planning to attend a REIA meeting in my town tomorrow, but how do I find sellers?? what must I ask? what must I know about the homes? how can I protect my initial investment in case all my exit strategies fail?

from what I read in some forums, wholesaling is tough, I can see that now, it takes time and a lot of effort.
the reason I'm starting here is because I'm now unemployed. I have A LOT of time, and it's the cheapest way to start. I can only use 2k of my own money to start, and that's basically 70% of my saving. even if I manage to make 5k in 2 deals I feel that's a great start. 

also, I heard I should make my own website. is this correct?

please, if any of you have any information, tips, and advice, please don't hesitate to say so