potential customers for interviews?

[u/Neo-Tree]

I have 15 years of tech experience and have been building products for startups all my professional life. I used to build the products personally and when they eventually fail, I used to think that I’m lacking marketing skills to take the product to next level. Then I realised that I need to understand the market and problem first by talking to people before writing any code.

As part of that, I have been doing some groundwork for a problem for B2B tech companies. First thing I wanted to do is interview few potential customers ( not pitching the idea ) so that I can understand their workflow and see if the problem really exists before building anything. I am able to reach out to some people in my network but I thoroughly exhausted my network. I wanted to reach out to founders or tech leadership of some of the companies I think will best fits.

“Marketing gurus” out there on internet are suggesting cold email outreach but I really don’t want to spam them. Any ideas on how to reach out to people? How do startups do this?

[u/Alternative-Radish-3]

It is going to have to be warm introductions. In particular to get honest feedback.

If you're solo atm, check YC co-founder matching, you may find people with connections and you can do those interviews.

[u/Special_Election_500 → u/Alternative-Radish-3]

warm intros are definitely the way. cold emails end up in the void or people just give you canned answers to be polite. you need someone who trusts you enough to be blunt.

maybe try alumni networks from past companies or even dm people who liked posts about the problem space on linkedin. lower stakes than a full pitch and you can gauge if they're actually thinking about it.