The way to find Problems and Needs
It is hard to discover problems and needs, but there is a way to increase your chance of encountering problems and needs you care to solve. You must throw yourself into something you really like. While doing this you will connect with others via on- and offline communities and in those communities problems and needs will arise.
Sounds easy right, but is it missing something? Please let me know below!
Also, this would be a long term play, what would be a shorter term play?
Joining communities, discover the problems they already talk about, and identifying the most promising problems to solve (high frequency + willingness to pay) is a great way to identify needs and business ideas. The short-term play would be to find the right communities you wanna build and the right problems to solve. Once you decided on this, you'll be in it for the long game (building business & engaging with the community takes time).
I recently started a newsletter on exactly those topics, in case you wanna check it out: https://communityvalidated.substack.com/welcome
Oh cool, thanks for sharing!