| I’ve used several pathways and got great results. Created several product prototypes of an ML model to see if there was a customer base and business opportunity for it. Ended up with a dozen potential license deals some with multinationals and a pilot expansion to over 100 locations. Here’s what we explored: Expert Network Companies - They connect you to the right people for a cost per call, $250-$1000 depending on their level. I found my own expert (versus going through an expert network company). I paid her $350/hour. Well worth it as she built her network over 30 years and gave me hot introductions (she booked the meetings and was on the call) to first customers. Leapmotiv - a customer discovery company. They’re great at booking cold leads and conducting high quality interviews. You have to be really clear on your goal. I recommend using them after you’ve done a few calls yourself so you have them working on deeper inquiry. Some of these interviews led to customer conversations. DIY - LinkedIn If you want to do it yourself I recommend approaching it like going to a new country. You need to know the lay of the land and be able to speak a bit of the language. Read your target’s LinkedIn bio and job descriptions to see what matters to them. You’ll start to notice their lingo. Go for volume of calls and try speaking their language. They’ll feel more understood and thus more willing to give referrals for more people to speak with. For example, I started a new co-founder for hire gig a month ago in a new space, health literacy. I kept seeing in the LinkedIn bios the challenge of getting patients to take responsibility for their own care. They use lingo like “health outcomes.” When I’m on calls, I get nods when I mention wanting to facilitate patient responsibility in their own care to improve health outcomes. DIY - Online communities This was where I found non-obvious use cases. Maybe there are forums you can join. Podcast guest - Be a podcast guest on industry podcasts and let the leads come to you. Not sure if this one is applicable, but there are podcasts for just about everything All the best! Happy to answer questions |