A pro photographer who makes a living is often not the best photographer but is a competent business person who takes care of the business aspects.
At what level do you see an opportunity in your area? How much market research have you done? What does everyone else charge and who are major potential clients using now? Are you going to open a studio? If so, how many months can you support yourself and cover costs before it needs to make a profit?
If it is just casual, someone likes a photo and asks you for a casual or home session, it is better not to charge anything to ask for a proposal.
What genre do you have commercial applicable experience? If it is, say weddings, don't do it....not until you have second shot 50 weddings with a photographer you respect. Weddings are too high pressure and too expensive to ruin by not having everything handled without screwups.
Home or studio portraits are more forgiving and slower paced but do 15 or more full sessions start to finish for free to build a portfolio and have other people pick the photos to include in your portfolio. Do your experimenting with lighting before client it present. What sets lifestyle and portrait photographers apart from the average is posing skill, it is one of the hardest things to do for people who are not naturally gregarious and people empathetic.
Do you have the needed lighting systems and enough modifiers to meet the challenges a session in someones home or outdoor will have?
Can you post an image you think represents your world that would apply to your clients. Don't be shy to ask people you think would be good models for your portfolio for free session and rights to use the photos. Even if you have to pay a professional model who had good experience it is well worth seeing how a real model works to assume the varied "looks" they present to the camera, good models are very body aware and you can learn a lot from them in posing, and that alone can set you apart from the crowd. Beginning model only occasionally have those skills, so don't pay them unless they have something to teach you.
As others have suggested, interning in a studio seeing the business side, workflow, session management, and lighting setups is the best education you could get. Even volunteering as gofer for a wedding shooter, to haul gear and hold fishpole lights will be a great education, until you are asked to 3rd or even second shoot for them. Do it for free, if they are really in demand offer to pay to work for them for a while.
When the whole scene of business, forms, customer relations, studio management and session workflow is well understood you can consider going on your own. The business of photography is no different from a furniture store or auto body shop it is a business where the product just happens to be one you like as a hobby. The same skills that make the auto body shop or furniture store successful apply to the photography business. The product just has a different name and technical process.
Photography and restaurants are the most common hobbies that people try to apply to making income from their hobby. Most good cooks are told by friends they need to open a restaurant. Worst advice ever. A good restaurant assumes a good product, but whether it is a going business is determined by the owner/manager having the desire to be in the restaurant business....entirely different skill set and temperament than being a good cook.
Good luck, remember...intern...