How do I talk to a target audience during a pandemic?

I created a playbook after going through this stage myself and helped other bootstrappers too.

http://pregrowth.guide

You may not need it any more but if you get 5 mins to take a glance, I'd love to hear any feedback you may have. Thank you in advance!

I wanted to talk to people to see if my idea really has value.

This is what's holding you back.

The way you've phrased that sentence, it's all about you and what's in it for you.

If you're going to do outreach - especially cold outreach - you need to get in the mindset of putting your customer first, fast.

Try reaching out to people to understand their pains, dreams and fears, and how you can help them improve their lives :)

Do it the same way you would have done without a pandemic, forgetting meetups.
Grab your phone, go online where you target audience is (linkedin but also facebook & others)
Send emails to build relationships, not to ask your questions right away

Use Linkedin. You can introduce yourself and share your offer with very specific niches. Check out the Linkedin groups for one related to your target audience. Ask to join and get to know people online.

Similar to how you would talk to people in real life: build relationships. If you went to a meetup you probably wouldn't walk straight up to people and immediately ask to interview them. Everyone would get to know each other first. You can do the same thing online by finding where your audience hangs out (be it IH, twitter, etc), participating in the conversations they are having and building relationships. It takes time but probably just as much time as cold outreach considering the low response rate.

Cold outreach is totally fine too, you'll just get a lot of rejection (which is normal and ok!).

For what it's worth, I have a small B2C company and would be happy to hear about your idea!