Customer discovery in industrials – tips on not coming off like a clown

Hi HN, I'm a 2nd time entrepreneur that had a modest (small) exit this past summer. I've got a team with me looking into the next idea and we want to move into industrials/manufacturing, construction, agriculture or other areas with a large labor needs that are experience more and more difficult labor situations.

I've worked in manufacturing engineering in the past, have gotten a few calls from plant controllers - but with technicians it's difficult. I used to be part of the UAW, and am from Detroit, but I understand that many of these people don't want to speak to someone from silicon valley/SF.

I definitely haven't explored all options, I do customer discovery full time at the moment and am going to the midwest to try and do more here soon - but I explore HN very often and thought I'd make a first post to see if anyone here has experience in the space!

Our team isn't worried about handling anything technical - we've got a great team to do hard and software. We think the labor crisis is a decade+long problem that needs to be solved, and we want to address a part of it!