The best course is to find users before building a prototype. Guess it's too late to apply.
Think about why you're doing what you're doing. What kind of problem it solves? Who has this problem? Once you understand the problem it takes some trial-and-error to find actual people that have it. The good thing if you're right about the problem people will be willing to talk to you, since you might have a solution they are looking for.
it takes time to really learn your users. I've built a community site for developers (DOU.ua) and it took me five years to figure out the most pressing problem my customers have. May be I wasn't listening hard enough but it still takes time.
(we're working on the same problem, so thanks for bringing this up).I think it is a real and HUGE problem.
There are various startups who are trying to attack it from different angles. E.g. checkout Path.to, geekli.st, branchout.
We think the solution is make matching process more efficient, with software. Instead of people recruiters trying to make a match through "numbers game" we match with algorithm and user feedback to make it better.
Check it out at monday52.com and let me know what d'you think.
Think about why you're doing what you're doing. What kind of problem it solves? Who has this problem? Once you understand the problem it takes some trial-and-error to find actual people that have it. The good thing if you're right about the problem people will be willing to talk to you, since you might have a solution they are looking for.
it takes time to really learn your users. I've built a community site for developers (DOU.ua) and it took me five years to figure out the most pressing problem my customers have. May be I wasn't listening hard enough but it still takes time.