How do you guys approach users without sounding creepy?

(sent from your personal email instead of a list or mailbot)

"Hey, I hope you'll forgive the intrusion. I'm the founder/creator of XXX, which you were kind enough to take a look at recently. If you were willing to share a few words about why you initially signed up, and then why you decided it wasn't for you, it would really be a big help for me.

This is just a one-time personal email and you aren't signed up to any sort of mailing list, so you can feel free to just ignore this message and you won't get any more. Big thanks for any help and apologies for the interruption.

All the best,
XXX"

Hey Joan, how are you planning on reaching out to them?

There are a number of ways to do this, including in-app, email, push notifications, sms, etc. I personally find sms outreach to be distasteful from apps I've just signed up for. In-app and Push notifications can be trickier to set up on the dev side, so I'd say email is probably the simplest place to get started.

You could sign up for apps that you think are cool and then watch what they do with their onboarding emails. Or if you want a higher level overview, check out this blog: https://www.valgeisler.com/blog/

For thoughts about how to guide people through the onboarding process (presumably towards a purchase decision) check out Useronboard.com.

I think as long as the gave you permission to contact them through their email. You could just be authentic and ask them for advice on how to improve the product.

Just be personable. People like the 'human' behind the business.

Tell them your app is new and you are trying to receive feedback. Worst case they don't answer.