I'm obviously biased here but I think a great way for you to get your hands dirty would be to invest in an accelerator, such as (plug alert!) Startupbootcamp or The Difference Engine or Tetuan Valley or a number of others.
By invest I mean either time (as a mentor) or money (as an investor in the accelerator itself) or both.
You get to be involved in 10 early stage startups, but you are not alone. You can follow their progress as they get input from dozens of super star mentors. It's actually an awesome due dilligence process as you get to see which teams are great at generating traction.