There are some great answers in this thread. Ultimately, it takes some creativity and hustle. First of all, you are correct that you need to talk to people who may experience the problem (as is reinforced by some of the other answers). But finding them and getting time with them is where the creativity comes in. It really depends on who those people are and what mechanisms they turn to for information. Facebook is effective of many people, but so are industry groups and chamber's of commerce. It was suggested that you join networking groups, but I would be more focused than that. Do your research and possibly use an LLM (ChatGPT, Claude, others) to suggest where your target audience goes for info. Then go to those places and find your people. Be well prepared to talk with them when you find them. Have a good hypothesis of the problem they may have and how they may solve it now. Figure out all the assumptions you are making about them and how they experience the problem, then go validate those assumptions.

Mentorship is a very trust-based relationship. It is one of guidance and governance. It's not like coaching, which is prescriptive and deliberate. So, you need to be careful about who you choose to mentor you. I would get to know them well before you call them a mentor. I would also make sure that you trust them and they trust you. As you can imagine, it can get quite expensive paying several mentors for their time to try to build these relationships. If you can, build the relationship first, before paying any money. You can eventually get to a paid relationship (fees or equity) if it is beneficial to you. Keep in mind that good mentors can also become good board members, and you will compensate those roles.

You ultimately need to pick a focus area and define who has problems to solve in that focus are. Then you need to seek out those people and talk to them. Validate that they have a problem worth solving and that your customer generative AI solution can actually help solve it. If you are using AI now, it can help you think through the focus areas, possible problems and potential customers. But, it is not good at validating the problem with those potential customers. You need to meet with them. AI tools are also not going to help you build relationships with those potential customers so they trust you enough to help them. I hope that helps.