Build slowly and steadily while you're learning...
Track your progress and rankings and record the results. Empirical testing, measurement and analysis is the ONLY way to fully understand what works and what doesn't. Keep it simple at the start and let it build naturally.
Concetrate on good quality content-based tier 1 links from 2.0's/articles etc and in reasonably small volumes and then build larger quantities in the 2nd tier as suggested by scorpion king. Don't over-link directly to your main site at the start, or you'll experience massive bounce.
Also, build massive diversity in all areas of your backlink strategy; IP, content, anchors, URLs, platform/CMS, submission timing etc. Get it looking as natural as possible.