just need some meaningful advice.

This is one of those things that can simply hold you back from taking action on many more meaningful things.Once your a couple deals in and you need to hire an attorney to consult you and seperation of entities and other things it will be worth the money.

A good friend of mine is great a memorization and learning definitions, but doesn't do so well at extracting lessons, themes and nuance so he failed multiple times after studying online.

This is all done to try and extract another 20 basis points on the price etc.

How can I use people's investments and give them a meaningful ROI?

I would suspect that many students never put anything into meaningful action after the excitement from the seminars or coaching programs wane. 

(this indemnity is only meaningful and worthwhile if the person you are going after has enough $$ to cover your losses - hence i said make sure you get a real person and not an entity). 

Owner financing, financing that is based on value and not based on purchase price, lease options, etc.There are also entire books written on how to extract sweat equity such as BRRRR, leveraging under utilized zoning, parcel plits, etc. 

I would ask you to honestly share with the BiggerPockets community whether you rushed into this, or whether the particular plan provider you are working with was just selling services and not providing any meaningful information to assist you in your understanding of what works and what does not.To summarize, there are a few key takeaways:1) The Solo 401(k) plan format likely provides advantages to you as a self-employed realtor than the IRA based program does. 

It's up to you weather the results equate to a meaningful life or not but you're already on a great pathBest,Ryan