I’d usually rather fix a bug than send a cold message. The bug gives me something definite to work on. A person can ignore the message, misunderstand it, or tell me the thing I spent weeks building isn’t useful to them.
It’s easy to turn that discomfort into another feature. Better onboarding, one more integration, a nicer landing page. All reasonable work, but none of it answers whether someone wants the product.
The question I find useful is: what happened the last time this person had the problem? An actual account of how they did the work tells me more than “would you use an app that…?” It also gives a demo something specific to improve on.
For outreach, I’d rather send a short message about that situation than explain the entire product. Ask whether the problem comes up, offer to show one relevant piece, and make it easy to decline. A reply is information; silence isn’t a feature request.
I’m still a builder. I just need to notice when building has become a way to postpone finding out.