bái​shǒu​qǐ​jiā

start from scratch

白手起家 bái​shǒu​qǐ​jiā
start from scratch idiom
to build up from nothing; to start from scratch

He started from scratch and built a business empire through his own efforts.

Frequency

Movie subtitles
1.49 per million appears in 1% of films
Written text
1.11 per million

Sources

Definitions
CC-CEDICT