This is really, really helpful. I will try to do all of these things for the project I'm currently working on. But man, cold calling 20 people is going to be so much harder than actually building the thing.
I don't think you _have_ to do every item on the list for every project; that's where you sort of need to know yourself and your audience.
That said, direct contact with your customers/users is extremely helpful. It might not have to be cold calls if you happen to have a good network already. I've never been good at cold outreach either, but I have no problem talking to people I know might be interested.
