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by mmanulis 1570 days ago
I've been using the following to pick up a new hobby (wood working [surprise]) and start learning about potential business ideas (data/ML space and pet industry):

I'm sure there are topics you're curious about or sound interesting to you. Maybe there's a hobby you wanted to try out? Spend a little bit of time watching YouTube, listening to podcasts, reading blogs or joining discord/slack communities for that topic.

This doesn't have to be some huge investment. Spend an hour or two looking at a topic. This can be in 5-minute increments or a 2-hour block, w/e.

Are you still interested? Do you want to learn more about the topic? Do you want to try your hand at it? Go for it. Go as deep as you want on it, actually make your own version of w/e you're interested in.

Now go talk to people in various communities online. There are so many slack and discord groups out there, you'll find something you connect with. Ask questions. Engage in conversations. If you're feeling up to it, reach out to people to setup video calls. Some meetups are starting to offer in-person events, if you're comfortable doing that.

Still interested, still want to turn it into something more? Check out The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. It's fantastic guide on how to actually do customer development. Doesn't have to be about making something into a business. He's got great tactical advice on how to get info from people in a regular conversation and learn about stuff.