Where did you find your better half ? Suggestion on portfolio managers

I have this consistent doubt around how do you people choose your portfolio managers ?

I'm a fairly hardworking engineer who has always tried to make the best of all opportunities that came my way and saved 80% of everything i earned. Most of it invested in real estate and won't say it's performing amazingly well but I'm happy about having one less thing to worry about later.

After fulfilling my liabilities i am beginning to balloon my savings account. Over the past year i have spent hours studying fundamentals and technicals for the third time and I have again reached a conclusion that it's a full time job that i can't do with my already overflowing upskilling initiatives pre and post work (that evident help me increase my base revenue inflow)

That was the background.

Here's the doubt. Most of you who built your own empires must have started at a smaller amount at some point of time.

Before you reached 2cr qualifying amount for the BIG portfolio managers that promise high yield ROIs and other stuff, you must have had 20 lacs to invest at some point of time.

What did you guys do ? How did you invest that ? How do I find someone that i can't entrust with this amount with the confidence that this will grow ? while i shift my focus to increasing my baseline even further to earn/save more and eventually take this 20L to 2 cr.

Open to criticism if I am making glaring errors in this thought process.

-Yes I have started small SIPs into 2 ; Large Cap and Flexi Cap, funds as it seemed wise to start the offloading of cash into market over a longer a period of time and if I only keep these two ON, it would take 5+ years to offload my current savings. - Yes I'm afraid of making larger lumpsum investments due to feeling of having inadequate knowledge no matter how much I research.

So I'm assuming there exist guys that happily accept amounts as small as 20L and invest it in chunks of 2.5-5L across the market , actively manage it and generate returns while charging a fee / % on profit generated.

Building on this assumption I'm trying to understand how you found Your advisors in Your early days ?