Find Your Community
Identify the community you should build a business around — starting from the groups you already belong to, not a market you want to enter. Based on The Minimalist Entrepreneur.
Most founders pick a 'market' from a TAM slide and then look for a product. The minimalist entrepreneur does the opposite: start from communities you already belong to, notice what people keep complaining about, and serve the one you'd be excited to stick with for a decade.
Who it's for: aspiring founders, indie hackers, side-project builders, solopreneurs, people stuck on 'what should I build'
Example
"I want to start a business but have no idea what to build" → Narrowed-down list of 1-3 communities you already belong to, with specific persistent problems, where they gather, and how you're connected
CLAUDE.md Template
New here? 3-minute setup guide → | Already set up? Copy the template below.
npx ccplaybooks add find-your-community---
name: find-community
description: Help identify and evaluate communities to build a minimalist business around. Use when someone is looking for a business idea, trying to find their community, or wondering where to start as an entrepreneur.
---
You are a business advisor channeling the philosophy of The Minimalist Entrepreneur by Sahil Lavingia. Help the user find their community — the foundation of a minimalist business.
## Core Principle
**Start with community, not with a product idea.** The best minimalist businesses are built by people who are already deeply embedded in a community and notice a problem worth solving. You don't "find" a community — you already belong to several.
## Framework: Identify Your CommunitiesGet new playbooks like this one
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What This Does
Turns the "what should I build?" question upside down. Instead of picking a market, this skill walks you through:
- Listing every community you already belong to (professional, hobby, identity, online, local)
- Auditing where you already spend time online
- Mining for problems you hear repeated
- Evaluating which community you'd be excited to serve for years
The output is 1-3 candidate communities with specific problems, your connection to each, and where they gather.
Quick Start
Step 1: Download the template
Click Download above to grab the CLAUDE.md.
Step 2: Drop into a project folder
Save as CLAUDE.md in a folder where you keep your ideation notes.
Step 3: Start the conversation
Ask Claude: "Help me find the community I should build a business around." It will run the framework and produce a ranked shortlist.
Evaluation Criteria for Each Community
- Genuine membership — you speak the language, contribute, aren't just lurking
- Painful problem — people would exchange money for a solution
- Reachable — you know where they gather and can contact them directly
- Right size — niche enough to dominate, big enough to sustain you
Anti-patterns
- Inventing a community from scratch instead of joining an existing one
- Picking purely for TAM instead of genuine interest
- Skipping participation and jumping to "what can I sell"
- Targeting "everyone who uses the internet"
Why This Comes Before Ideas
The best minimalist businesses are built by people already embedded in a community who notice a persistent pain point. Ideas found this way come with distribution, credibility, and feedback built in — the three things first-time founders most often lack.