Ask HN: How do you talk to users, your potential customers?

I'm Jagan, co-founder of a startup based in Chennai. Two years ago, I started this company with two childhood friends, Deepak and Ajay. We initially tried building large-scale B2C platforms like a food delivery service and an event booking platform. The event booking platform shut down in a month, and the food delivery startup scaled to 100 orders but failed due to lack of funds. We pivoted to IT services and made decent money, but we didn’t enjoy it and wanted to build a product of our own.

We decided to build a SaaS platform since Chennai is the SaaS capital of India. Our first attempt was an all-in-one project management tool, but we built it without talking to users—a big mistake. We then pivoted to digital asset management and later to document management. While building this, I realized we could integrate AI to generate insights from the stored data. We demoed it at a SaaS meetup, and while people liked the idea, we were asked, "Who is it for?"—and we didn't have a clear answer.

After further advice and some traction with 170 signups, we pivoted Filecentral.io into an AI-powered file storage solution for both B2B and B2C. But people mostly used it for storage, not the AI features. At another event, we were once again asked, "Who is it for?" and how we were different from Google Drive or Microsoft. A CTO at the event suggested selling the AI tech as a service, which intrigued me.

After lots of pivots and refactoring, I don't want to rebuild again. We started this as a document management solution and discovered that industries like chemical engineering actually use DMS tools. Current systems have poor UI/UX, high pricing, and users struggle to find documents. Our "Ask AI" feature helps users find, analyze, and summarize documents in natural language, and our pricing is much lower. However, we lack features like e-sign, workflows, and approvals—but I want to talk to potential buyers before building these features.

I want to focus on SMBs in construction, real estate, manufacturing, and industrial engineering. How do I find these people, set up meetings, and understand their needs before building?