The paradox of focusing on or finding the user at the beginning of the innovating process is that while someone may eventually use or benefit from what you have to offer, there is no way you can design a yet-to-exist product around non-existing people.
And only they will be able to judge whether your offering adds value to them. Until then, you have to be willing to take a leap of faith!
From the book, Innovating: A Doer’s Manifesto for Starting from a Hunch, Prototyping Problems, Scaling Up, and Learning to Be Productively Wrong by Luis Perez-Breva