Greetings,
It depends upon what you want to do. Being new you probably don't know what yet. Whatever is decided later it certainly helps to have lots of credits to pay for it. High Tech Systems with a good government, stable state, high security and millions-billions population will offer lots of missions to select from as well as equipment and ships. The more you fly for factions in a station, the better they like you, and provide higher paying missions. Get friendly with the Galaxy and System maps. Cargo delivery missions are pretty simple as are short jump personnel transports. Don't go with the awesome high paying missions as you won't have the ship or skills to do it. Some can be risky so read the missions carefully. Getting a ship ungraded to at least 400 m/s boost, basic flying and avoid interdiction skills makes this pretty easy.
Some start out with combat although traditionally has never been as profitable. Also the higher combat rating a player gets the NPC bad guys also get better. Still it is a needed skill to survive later on but not for now.
Some basic suggestions...
Never fly without a few rebuys. It is insurance and if you cannot afford it after getting killed then you start the game all over in a shiny new Sidewinder.
Get some credits, say 10 times what your low cost startup ship is worth, maybe less with better ships then take some chances trying out different player styles. You might get killed but then gain pilot experience which will come in very handy later. Every mistake we make improves us. Thomas Edison took over 1000 unsuccessful attempts to invent the light bulb. Given we have 21st century technology your odds in Elite Dangerous are A LOT better. I'd go 9:1 for a noob never playing a space trading game. 3:1 for a player in space games over 30 years.
Don't upgrade a ship more than you can afford. Don't purchase an expensive ship more than you can afford. After playing a LONG while it is exciting to move up to something bigger and better. It is human nature and the Devs who designed this can be evil! There are thousands of posts on this Forum over the years where a player moved up too fast, bought say a Python too soon without the rebuy and ended up in a shiny new Sidewinder!
As a player moves up in ships they require different flying skills. There is one progression of ships to accomplish this such as Asp Explorer, Type-6/7 Transporters, Python then the Anaconda. Consider being a noob every time you purchase one then use the experience you have gained to improve your skills. A player taking a shorter course after making lots of credits could purchase an Anaconda but without developing the skills to fly it I would suggest purchasing lots of paint jobs at the Frontier Store for your shiny new Sidewinder!
Starting out play in Solo or Group mode if you make some friends who play nice. Take out the NPCs first and learn the game. If you are a good guy (or gal, or a German Shepherd...they are very smart. I just use guy for everyone) then take an inexpensive ship with lots of rebuys to popular live player systems as the Lave area, engineering bases, systems to gather materials, Frontier and Forum live streams to get together. There are live player bad guys waiting for you to show up. That is their player style but you can meet some friends before they kill you.
I touched on maybe 5 percent of what this game offers. Other opinions will vary. After years I have owned every ship in the game and know how to fly them in every play style. Great in some and not so good in others because it wasn't for me. In Beta I purchased a Fleet Carrier...I'm a noob! Learning in this game never ends.
Regards
Plz point a bro in the right direction 
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