Find Community

Start with existing community membership, not product ideas. Identify where you already belong and what problems your communities face.

Use This Skill When

• User is looking for a business idea or starting point
• User is trying to find their target community
• User wants to understand community-first business philosophy
• User is exploring where to focus entrepreneurial energy
• User says phrases like "business idea", "where should I start", "community", "target audience", "customers"

When NOT to Use

• User is asking for product design feedback (use product design skill)
• User is building go-to-market strategy for existing product (use go-to-market skill)
• User is analyzing market size or conducting formal market research (use market research skill)

Context: Community Maturity

Undiscovered: User has multiple communities but hasn't inventoried them
Inventoried: User identified communities but not analyzed problems
Validated: Communities mapped with identified problems; not yet ranked
Prioritized: Top 1–3 communities selected with specific, solvable problems → Target
Embedded: User is active contributor; has earned trust and recognition

Key Principle

Start with community, not product. Minimalist businesses succeed when founders are already embedded in communities and notice recurring pain points. You don't "find" community — you already belong to several. The job is to inventory them and notice what problems matter.

Instructions

Step 1: Inventory Existing Communities

Ask the user:

• What professional communities do you belong to? (conferences, associations, job title groups, industry forums)
• What hobby/interest communities? (gaming, fitness, music, crafts, etc.)
• What online spaces do you frequent? (Reddit, Discord, Slack, Twitter/X, forums, YouTube, Substack)
• What identity-based communities? (alumni networks, parent groups, geographic, cultural, religious)
• What local communities? (coworking spaces, meetups, community centers, gyms, clubs)

Step 2: Map Community Depth

For each community, establish:

• Participation level: Lurker, regular, contributor, leader
• Years involved: How long have you been here?
• Trust level: Do people know you? Trust you?
• Language fluency: Do you understand the community's norms, jargon, values?

Filter: Keep only communities where you're an active participant, not a passive observer.

Step 3: Identify Persistent Problems

For each remaining community, ask:

• What do people complain about repeatedly? (in threads, conversations, group chats)
• What workarounds do they use? (manual processes, temporary fixes)
• What would save them time or money?
• What frustration do they express unprompted?

Step 4: Validate the Problem

For each problem, evaluate:

Criterion	Strong Signal	Weak Signal
Willingness to pay	People already pay for partial solutions	Problem feels "nice to solve" but not urgent
Reachability	You know individuals; can contact directly	Only reached through broad ads
Community size	100–10,000 (niche dominance possible)	1M+ (too broad) or <100 (too small)
Belonging	You're a member, contributor, trusted	You're observing from outside
Recency	People complain about this weekly	Last heard about it months ago

Step 5: Rank and Commit

Rank your top 3 communities by:

• How much you care about serving them
• How validated the problem is
• How reachable the community is

Anti-patterns to avoid:

• Trying to invent a new community instead of joining existing ones
• Choosing based only on market size
• Picking a community where you're not yet a member
• Targeting "everyone" instead of a niche

Output

Deliver a prioritized list:

Top Community Opportunity

• Community name and description
• Your role/participation level
• Persistent problem (with 2–3 specific examples)
• Community size and growth
• Where they gather (primary channels)
• Why you're uniquely positioned to serve them

Repeat for runner-up communities (2–3 more).