You are right about starting from LinkedIn. But who would you target??
Its not easy to see each and every profile in LinkedIn and there you are likely to miss the trick. You need a specialist who can mine all relevant people from LinkedIn based on location, industry, etc and share their profile for you to contact them personally and take the discussion forward. I am sure you will get results if your reach out to the right person.
Should you need any help, contact me asap..