Find out where your audience hangs out online (forums, reddit, hackernews, blogs, etc). Start systematically going through the comments looking for pain points. Write those down. Then eventually you should find a pattern. Once you have an idea of a major pain you can probably come up with way to solve it.
That's basically what this guy just did to launch rubysteps: http://patmaddox.com/rubysteps/ . He realized there are a lot of aspiring devs that took the first step but couldn't figure out what they should do next.
There is an interview here where pat talks about his process: http://unicornfree.com/2014/from-zero-to-3k-mrr-in-10-days-t...
Another tactic: most software can be done on a small scale by a human being behind the scenes. Before you build out some incredible software product, try to sell the service to a few folks beforehand. You can mimic the software product by literally giving them a form to input some data and you then you manually do the work that your code would be doing. Obviously doesn't scale but it's a great way to find out "if someone will pay."
I think the more important part is to build a subtractive methodology, a way of editing out and whittling down ideas that won't work.
Use the James Altucher idea machine strategy and go sit in a coffee shop with a pen and paper and almost anyone entrepreneurial can come up with 50 ideas for possible businesses.
Then you need to go work editing those ideas and brutally crossing them off the list. And don't get attached to those ideas. Be comfortable having 50 ideas and crossing all 50 off the list. But having the mode, of taking every idea that comes to you and then really thoroughly scrutinize it, can help you know when you've hit on something really good.
Odds are, that really good idea originates from some random source, not necessarily a system for finding a good idea, but because you're already in the mode of evaluating them properly you'll be ready to pounce on it.
But yes, in general I do feel like I have _alot_ more professional development ahead of me.
To me this approach seems like it would work really well. But yes, I definitely think experience would help in the "editing" part of the list. Although, I imagine there has to be creative ways to get feedback on what works or won't work, even if I'm new to an industry.
Last year I was talking with my brother about the pain of kids' swim meets. He brings his son to an event where hundreds and hundreds of kids show up. They are often in multiple events. Actual swimming time is short, but he had to hang around all day waiting for the right races. This year he told me that somebody had created an app: the meet organizers upload the race data; he can just go in and star the kids he's shepherding. Then he gets a real-time schedule showing just the races he has to make, letting them go off and have fun rather than hanging around.
You can bet that whoever built that app had a family member who told me a story exactly like the one my brother told me. But they went and hung out at a few swim meets and did followup interviews with some of the organizers. Eventually, an app was born.
Problems are everywhere once you start looking for them. Keep a backlog of problems and solution ideas, and sort them by how good a business you think they'd make. Eventually you'll find one where you'll say, "Well, I'm willing to bet some of my time and money that I can make something worth buying."
Learn, learn, learn. Keep your eyes and ears open. There are loads of chances, especially in less sexy industries.
This is the advice I'd love to have given a 10 year-younger version of myself..
Some of it involves hanging out in places where a market you know bitches about things, and find out what their issues are.
For this line - "I know that starting from this position, with certainty that some customers will pay for the product is a fantastic starting point for a small business or passive income side project."
As someone who recently graduated college and wants to create some sort of startup/side-business some day; how does one go about finding what things someone would be interested in paying for?
Any tips on how to find that initial starting point?