IMHO the OP is misleading in saying he only wants to "know more about <industry>", because he actually wants to turn these people into early customers. Isn't that a way to piss them off? Otherwise maybe the idea is to defer the customer development phase to later, but it seems a waste to find interested people and not having them as customers.
If he solves their problems and the become customers why would anyone be pissed off? If it validates his idea it's far more valuable than the time he'd waste developing his concept in a vacuum. Seems like I've read somewhere that if you want to succeed in business you need to be OK with pissing a few people off.
