Squadbuilding interests me. Seeing how new squads interact interests me.

I'd be even more interested if I had an active playgroup that also was interested in squadbuilding. As is, I have just a few local opponents but only one who builds his own squads.

It's hard to put myself in the shoes of a new player, but I think that when I started out I was hoping to find new combinations no one else had previously found. The current game has it available more than ever. Two things contribute to that - fewer players (so there's more unexplored space in squadbuilding) and more balance in the Vset pieces that have been released. So there are more pieces available to find interesting combinations.

I'm sure that for a new player if there's no one to play with that's probably the biggest turnoff.

Oh boy the memeoroes this question brings. I started playing when I was around 7. I started because it was Star Wars and it was one of those cool for the year things all the kids were doing. I asked my parents if I could start playing and after some explaining they were happy to let me. My dad was an old school D&D guy and my mom thought it would be a good hobby for me. So we went out to the LGS and picked up the Revenge of the Sith starter and a couple cheap mook guys. I distinctly remember my mom asking me if I wanted a Wookiee which I said well of course, (I was super uncomfortable with my parents buying me stuff like that). After that I went home and immediately read both the quick play and full rules and demanded someone play with me. I was told to wait until the next day (Saturday) and so I read the rules book all over again and went to sleep. Next day we played using the 3 man teams from the quick play book. I was Grievous and two super battle droids. Dad Was Kenobi and two clones. We played 3 games and he beat my ass three times. I was frustrated, angry and completely hooked from that moment. I learned two very important lessons. Some people are better (and you can be come better through practice) and some pieces are just better than others (no way around that). After that all the allowance and chore money went to boosters and singles. I got heavy into trading especially at school during recess and it just took off. Tournaments at the community club playing my friends and cousins. Slowly people dropped the game and I absorbed their collections (I've taken in 5 peoples collections at this point). Found bloomilk late 2010 and my interest soared to new heights. I was on a hiatus through some of highschool until I taught my girlfriend and other friends how to play and now we do semi regular games. It was quite a shock to me to learn that most people didn't start playing until well Into the games life, while I've been here since almost the start. I thought I was the naive kid who didn't know anything. Turns out I'm the crusty old guy whose been around since the "good old days" in the "golden age".
"See Im from a different time sonny, back when Jedi had one attack, no renewal and cost 3/4 of your team. None of this fancy shmancy renewal 2 master of the force, ooga booga nonsense now a days".

And that was my orgin story, peace, love and good will to all

this is an excellent question!
I recall a few similar threads to this, so they're great to keep in mind,
though I always enjoy seeing where people approach this from.

From my experiences in running different local tournaments,
exhibition matches, casual 'drop-in' matches, etc...
I try to obtain some data, as I have had people get to turn 3 or so in a 100pts game exhibition match
and get bored, get up and walk off...
though most of the new inquiries have been from people who've seen us playing,
or just want to give something a try and have fun.
other games they've played had terrible cultures in the player-base: W40k, tannhauser league, malifaux, warmachine etc...
it was: rules-stickler, elitist/did not tolerate proxies or new-comers, people didn't take the time with them etc.

so its a number of factors -
the subject of the game itself,
the large-scale "wow factor" of seeing the miniatures all arrayed at a tournament or those ridiculous all day affairs
(5000 pts Seps v 5000pts Republic 15 a side!)
ease to play, frequency of games,
gaming culture (how friendly/lively are folks? what demography is at the local game store?)
and, cost of entry (time, fiscal etc).

we also have to model for the 'back of envelope market cap' -
that is,
of the number of star wars fans,
x % are fans enough to actively seek merchandise and games.
of those, x% are likely to game on an infrequent basis etc...
so from the global market cap of ~2-3billion sci fi fans, we now get down to,
at any time t, 300 million total persons who'd play a miniatures game at some point,
and maybe 10 million who game on a regular basis over their lifetime.
these people are not distributed equally over the earth's geography or temporally, and so many will speak different languages than english and search for the term in their own language.
(which is awesome to meet Star Wars fans from all around the world)
From what I can glean of production data, most of SWMinis total production run was in English, though it was also published in
Chinese, Russian, German, French, Greek, Arabic, Thai and Malay (the indonesian and Philippines SWMinis groups suggested these for a few sets). Hence, there could be a fundamental mismatch in folks knowing of the miniatures, if they're not in those regionalizations.
they're searching for a different term, if at all.
We are effectively also competing with FFG's imperial assault, heroclix and several other miniatures games...
in the context of the Great Depression mk 2, when people have the least discretionary income at all age brackets of the market,
and the least free time,
combined with a cultural shift in many places away from miniatures and models in general...
(YOLO TLDR)
there are a lot of factors which people are using.
why play with a 'static' miniature, when videogames have lights and sound?
yet those are no competition for the awesome simplicity that is WotC's SWMinis!

Once people realize that the miniatures are cross compatible, they tend to get more interested.
once they realize there is bloomilk, lead-adventure.de, coolminiornot, boardgamegeek etc...
their eyes light up, and they realize there is a whole world of fans out there too!
and, customizing/proxies are not only encouraged, but a routine occurrence?
say, that cost of entry is just right!
You can also use the figures for FORPG, GURPS, SWRPGs etc.
and, when people see things like
"far out and unique places that SWMinis have been played" -
such as aboard USS independence, USS Gerald R Ford, HMAS Canberra,
mount cook, mount Kosciusko, in a submarine, at castles in scotland...
they see it and think "wow'!

In terms of introduction, usually the player will set their pace,
though I like to start folks on
Tile Wars, Standard 100, Dynamic Duos, and "exhibition matches",
working our way towards
SW40K/'SW kill team", Dynamic Duos, 250/300, 500 pts etc.
many local game stores have nuanced interpretations of 'how the force works' -
it functions a lot more similarly to SWTCG and Warhammer Fantasy,
-it's a pool that all jedi can use from.
-all characters with a lightsaber have lightsaber defense.

anywho,
I hope this offers some insight,
and that SWMinis as a hobby, and bloomilk
continue to thrive and prosper as time goes on.
SWMinis goes from strength, to strength!

This is an awesome game,
I cannot overstate the value this game has pedagogically, as it teaches so many people math (especially combinatorics/permutations etc) and social skills.
the simplicity and combinations make this easily on par with Chess, Go, tabletop wargames, and roleplaying games.
it's a game for ages 4 to 104 (i think 104 is the oldest person to play and win a SWMinis game).

If you were new you'd just walk away. The insurmountable avalanche of figures, most of which have been obsoleted, some of which who's cards you may own are essentially textless. The initial attraction of SWM being a scaled down easier to learn and teach version of DDM has died, dried up and blown away as dust in the wind. A new player watching mouse droids mindlessly spin, Dash Rendar take 108 attacks, Jar Jar forcing a figure to attack itself and all the mechanics would just drown a new player. Why not just scrap all the V-Sets which are confusing and inaccessible and just recost the assets players already have. Then the only real change is errata and a change in the cost in the upper corner of the card. This is acceptable because people almost universally use a software tool to build teams. We have some great minds who have years of experience. Every WotC figure has an appropriate cost, it would take work to find it. Instead of making the 4,012th Luke just fix the fucking one from Rebel Storm so I can teach somebody to play the game again. You can't possibly get less people to show up to Gencon, what is there to lose?

+1
The game has gotten much more complex, and not just by the sheer number of pieces. The relatively bare-bones early WotC stuff is great for learning all the core mechanics of the game.

KezzamachineII taught a new playgroup the game last year, and some of them are very keen and members of the board. It'd be interesting to hear their thoughts.

If people were learning from scratch, I'd suggest they build up to the point where they learn the five big 200 point WOTC squads - Skybuck, Solo Charge, Han Cannon with Commandos, Thrawn swap, and Lancer/Sidious, before they take on the v-sets. Often v-set detractors don't understand how powerful and ahead of the pack the best WOTC squads were.

I'll keep short

How I got into it: I love MTG and got a friend into MTG and he said Minis was a lot like MTG

How I've gotten other players into the game: Make sure they like star wars first then introduce them to cool WotC minis that they have heard of. Boba, Luke, Vader, Stormies, Yoda, Han, Chewie, etc...

What got them hooked: Easy 100 point squads at first. Take time to teach them how a commander with synergized commons can be stronger than a squad full of rares with no synergy. Then once they have accepted this "gateway drug" unleash the power of the bloomilk squad builder Also take time to teach how to build a squad using bloomilk. Find an ability they like and show how to build around it.

Things that chased potential players off: Kicking their ass when you thought they were ready for live action is #1. And #2 is for MTG fans, but Blue MTG style complexity rules. I had a friend that was getting into it quit over "named". Like ARC Trooper Captain Fordo And Commando Droid Officer CE's. The new Phasma kind of irritates me with her "named" effect and I've played for about 10+ years. - (disclaimer: this is not the forum to discuss this piece or it's abilities, Thanks)

How to get people into the game: If Disney would just kick off 1 set of new figures, I bet it would take off like wild fire with the success of X-wing and Imperial Assault and the launch of 2 movies since it went out of print. Without new figures, it's hard to get people into an out of print game.