> and I think KiCad plays a major role in that

I'm not trying to rain on your or KiCad's parade, but what did it for me was EasyEDA's integration with JLCPCB's part library. Combined with JLCPCB's assembly service. For just a bit of extra money I now don't have to worry about footprints, availability, exporting the right files, creating a BOM, etc. I can just order at JLCPCB right from EasyEDA.

I really wanted to use KiCad instead of yet another online tool, but for my first steps this just makes more sense.