Validating a product sounds simple — until you actually have to talk to people

I’m building a tool called Tablender to help people (marketers, inventory analysts, ops folks) who spend hours combining and cleaning messy Excel files.

The idea feels solid. The pain is real. I’ve lived it.
But here's the hard part no one prepares you for: talking to users is really, really tough.

I’ve spent weeks trying to get conversations — warm intros, cold LinkedIn messages, Reddit, Slack groups… You name it.
And while a few amazing people have responded and helped a ton, it’s been way harder than expected to get honest, deep feedback.

Some things I’ve learned so far:

People are busy, and unless the problem is burning right now, it’s easy to ignore.

"I'm interested" doesn't always mean "I'm available."

Cold outreach takes persistence, empathy, and a thick skin.

I’m still figuring it out, and if you’re in the same boat: you’re not alone.

Would love to hear how others here approached validation — especially in messy-data, backend, or B2B-type tools.
How did you get people to actually talk to you?

Happy to share what's worked for me (and what totally flopped) if it helps anyone.