One thing I've learned: talking to users and potential users is crucial, like everyone says, but it's also crucial to talk to the right users, and to iterate on

One thing I've learned: talking to users and potential users is crucial, like everyone says, but it's also crucial to talk to the right users, and to iterate on how you find them. In the beginning, most people are probably going to dismiss what you've built. That's normal--people have a bias against adding yet another tool to the pile (for good reason). So unless your product is an exact bullseye for solving their problem, and has no real drawbacks, they won't be seriously interested. That's actually fine. You can have an extremely low conversion rate in the beginning. As long as you can find someone who is enthusiastic about what you're doing (and ideally wants to pay you for it), they will show you the path forward.