For B2B, I use sites like http://www.findthecompany.com/ http://www.findthecompany.com/. For consumer products, you need to find people who are in your target m

For B2B, I use sites like http://www.findthecompany.com/ http://www.findthecompany.com/. For consumer products, you need to find people who are in your target market and approach them. Questions can include something like what products (that are within my field of use) do you currently use, what do you like about them. what do you dislike, if you could wave a magic wand, what would you want to fix immediately, etc. This is not a sales call, just ask for 20 minutes of their time saying you want to interview people in the field of use, and most people will give it to you. You can always have more interviews later so don't worry that 20 minutes is too short. Interestingly enough, people will be more motivated to keep doing interviews because it's like "someone is listening to their problems for once!" Then you can slowly start to sell the product, as you build it along. It is the common loop of build -> test -> repeat. The testing portion is not just unit tests and other technical tests, it is also the human tests on the other side, because what's the point of building if no one is using it? There is more info in the above cited book, it really changed how i think about customer discovery and sales.