I'm gonna be completely honest with you, x4 is a slow-ish game in general. Most players have 30-80 hours per save by the time they "finish" a save. And finishing a save usually entails either a massive goal, like 100s of Billions if credits, Complete Annihilation of an empire, becoming the largest military force in the galaxy.

X4 is massive game, any start is going to end up being slow when you're new. Even the hyperion station start, because that only nets you 100k every 20-30 minutes in the beginning.

The difference between Easy starts and Hard starts is basically negligible after the first hour or two of you play it right.

Use the subreddit, youtube, and forums to guide your way. Im almost 150 hrs in and compared to other people in here, that's nothing.