Patience is key as a beginner unless you want to pour money into it. Not sure where your skill level is, im still fairly new myself, but if you have the cbm, I would look at resource harvesting. Water is the cheapest to get into, but grain and hop farming can be profitable as well (need water to do these though so keep that in mind).

If you don't have enough cbm currently, then I would recommend focusing on the pub quests. Energy is free and you can sell the resources in the market. I know energy can take awhile to refill so you can buy some cheap beer to refill your energy if you get impatient, just more expense.

Again, I am fairly new myself so this could be terrible advice lol but, it is what my experience so far suggests.

Hope it helps!