My app is a way for sneakerheads to follow, discover, and ultimately purchase new sneakers online from first announcement until they're available for purchase with minimal interaction. Today everyone does this by following blogs that make hundreds of posts per week with tons of repetition and very low signal to noise.
I've built a prototype for myself, but would like to now connect with the right industry people to help guide the product and be trusted early users. In another reply you mentioned finding users to serve as product advisors similarly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11183572) . I'm having a hard time discovering who the "right" people are and reaching them in a compelling way. If I were further along [read: post private beta] I would reach out to someone like Phin Barnes @ First Round, but I feel at this stage it's too early for him to really give interest.
Sneakerheads are the right people! The good news is that you are going after a very well-defined segment. The ones online are easy to reach - the read the same blogs, hang out in the same online forums.
What if you went to the bloggers who are writing these posts? They might find the app even more useful than normal consumers, and they have large audiences they could advertise it to.
Phin Barnes might be a good investor someday, but he won't do the work for you, which is to get sneakerheads using the app. Once you've got passionate fans in the sneakerhead community, you should go talk to him.
I've built a prototype for myself, but would like to now connect with the right industry people to help guide the product and be trusted early users. In another reply you mentioned finding users to serve as product advisors similarly (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11183572) . I'm having a hard time discovering who the "right" people are and reaching them in a compelling way. If I were further along [read: post private beta] I would reach out to someone like Phin Barnes @ First Round, but I feel at this stage it's too early for him to really give interest.