Ask HN: How to reach out to industry experts

It seems as though the key to alot of startups succeeding and differentiating themselves from the competition gets glazed over in the retelling of their story's. SpaceX started after Elon organized a conference of top experts in the field. While Elon may have had 'influence' due to his previous exits, how would a person starting a company in a field reach out to people outside of his/her network? Example scenarios/ 'reach-out' emails would be greatly appreciated!