Best Way to Find Pain Points: 7 Proven Methods for 2025

You’ve got a brilliant idea for a product or service. You’re excited, ready to build, and convinced it will change lives. But here’s the hard truth: most startups fail not because they build poorly, but because they build solutions to problems that don’t actually exist - or at least, don’t exist in the way founders think they do.

The best way to find pain points isn’t through guesswork or assumptions. It’s through systematic research that connects you directly with the people experiencing those problems. In this guide, we’ll walk through seven proven methods that successful entrepreneurs use to uncover real, validated pain points that are worth solving.

Understanding genuine customer pain points is the difference between building something people tolerate and building something they can’t live without. Let’s dive into how you can discover these opportunities before investing months of development time and thousands of dollars.

Why Finding Real Pain Points Matters More Than Ever

In today’s competitive market, you can’t afford to build on assumptions. The best way to find pain points starts with recognizing that every successful product solves a specific problem for a specific group of people. Without this foundation, you’re essentially gambling with your time and resources.

Consider this: according to CB Insights, 42% of startups fail because there’s no market need for their product. That’s not a technology problem or an execution problem - it’s a pain point validation problem. These founders built solutions before truly understanding the problems.

Real pain points have three characteristics:

• Frequency: The problem occurs regularly enough that people actively seek solutions
• Intensity: The pain is significant enough that people are willing to pay to solve it
• Urgency: People need a solution now, not eventually

When you find pain points that check all three boxes, you’ve discovered a genuine business opportunity.

Method 1: Mine Online Communities for Unfiltered Feedback

Online communities are goldmines for discovering pain points because people share their frustrations openly and honestly. Reddit, Facebook Groups, Discord servers, and niche forums host millions of conversations where your potential customers are already discussing their problems.

The best way to find pain points in these communities is to look for recurring patterns. When you see the same complaint appearing across multiple threads, multiple times, from different users - that’s a validated pain point.

How to Extract Pain Points from Communities

Start by identifying 5-10 communities where your target audience hangs out. Don’t just skim; dive deep into the conversations. Look for:

• Complaint threads with high engagement (comments and upvotes)
• Questions that get asked repeatedly
• Workarounds people have created for existing solutions
• Highly upvoted comments expressing frustration

For example, if you’re exploring the productivity space, r/productivity might reveal that people consistently struggle with maintaining focus while working from home. That’s not just one person’s problem - it’s a pattern worth investigating.

Method 2: Conduct Problem-Focused Customer Interviews

Customer interviews remain one of the most effective ways to uncover deep pain points, but most founders do them wrong. The best way to find pain points through interviews is to focus on problems, not solutions.

Here’s the framework that works:

The Mom Test Approach

Rob Fitzpatrick’s “The Mom Test” teaches us to ask about specific past behaviors rather than hypothetical futures. Instead of asking “Would you use a tool that does X?” ask “Tell me about the last time you struggled with X.”

Effective interview questions include:

• “Walk me through the last time you dealt with [problem area]”
• “What have you tried to solve this problem?”
• “What’s the most frustrating part of [current solution]?”
• “How much time/money does this problem cost you?”

The goal is to understand the context around problems, not to pitch your solution. When someone shares a detailed story about a frustrating experience, you’re uncovering a real pain point.

Method 3: Analyze Customer Support Tickets and Reviews

If you’re already running a business or working in an industry, customer support data is a treasure trove of pain points. These are problems so significant that people took time out of their day to complain or ask for help.

The best way to find pain points in support data is through systematic categorization:

1. Collect all support tickets, chat logs, and email inquiries from the past 3-6 months
2. Group them by topic or problem category
3. Identify the top 10 most frequent issues
4. Note the emotional intensity in the language people use

Similarly, reviews on platforms like G2, Capterra, Amazon, or Google are filled with pain points. Look for patterns in 1-3 star reviews, particularly phrases like “I wish it had…” or “The biggest problem is…”

Method 4: Use Social Listening and Keyword Research

People express pain points constantly on social media, often without realizing they’re doing it. Social listening tools help you track these conversations at scale.

Platforms to Monitor

Twitter (X) is particularly valuable because people openly complain about products and services. Search for phrases like:

• “Why is [thing] so difficult?”
• “I hate that [thing]…”
• “There has to be a better way to [task]”
• “Am I the only one who struggles with [problem]?”

Keyword research tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or even Google’s autocomplete can reveal pain points through search intent. When people search “how to fix [problem]” or “[product] alternative because [reason],” they’re expressing pain points.

Method 5: Observe People in Their Natural Environment

Sometimes the best way to find pain points is to watch people actually do the tasks you’re interested in solving. Ethnographic research - observing users in their natural environment - reveals friction points that people might not articulate in interviews.

You can do this by:

• Shadowing potential customers as they work
• Asking people to screen-share while completing a task
• Watching user testing videos on platforms like UserTesting.com
• Participating in the activity yourself to experience the pain firsthand

Pay attention to workarounds, hesitations, frustrations, and moments where people verbalize complaints. These are often stronger signals than what people tell you in formal interviews.

How PainOnSocial Streamlines Pain Point Discovery

While all these methods are valuable, they’re also time-consuming. Manually searching through dozens of Reddit threads, categorizing hundreds of comments, and identifying patterns can take weeks. That’s where PainOnSocial becomes invaluable for founders who need to move quickly.

PainOnSocial automates the process of discovering validated pain points from Reddit communities. Instead of manually browsing subreddits for hours, the platform uses AI to analyze real discussions across 30+ curated communities and surfaces the most frequent and intense problems people are actually talking about.

Here’s what makes it particularly effective for pain point research:

• Evidence-backed insights: Every pain point comes with real quotes, permalinks to original posts, and upvote counts so you can verify the intensity yourself
• Smart scoring: Each pain point receives a 0-100 score based on frequency and intensity, helping you prioritize which problems to solve first
• Category filters: Quickly narrow down to specific industries or problem areas relevant to your interests
• Real-time discovery: Instead of spending weeks doing manual research, get actionable insights in minutes

The platform essentially compresses weeks of manual Reddit research into a searchable, AI-powered database of validated pain points. For founders validating ideas or looking for their next opportunity, it’s like having a research assistant continuously monitoring conversations across the internet.

Method 6: Run Surveys with the Right Questions

Surveys can be effective for validating pain points you’ve already identified, but they’re less useful for discovering new ones. The best way to find pain points through surveys is to include open-ended questions that allow people to express problems in their own words.

Effective Survey Structure

Your survey should include:

1. Demographic questions: Ensure you’re targeting the right audience
2. Current situation questions: “What tools do you currently use for [task]?”
3. Pain point questions: “What’s the biggest challenge you face when [doing task]?”
4. Prioritization questions: Ask people to rank problems by severity
5. Open-ended finale: “Is there anything else you’d like to share about [topic]?”

Keep surveys short (5-10 minutes max) and incentivize completion if possible. The quality of responses matters more than quantity - 100 thoughtful responses beat 1,000 rushed ones.

Method 7: Study Your Competitors’ Weaknesses

Your competitors’ shortcomings are your opportunities. The best way to find pain points in competitive markets is to identify what existing solutions don’t do well.

Research competitor weaknesses by:

• Reading their negative reviews thoroughly
• Joining their user communities and monitoring complaints
• Signing up for their products and experiencing the friction yourself
• Searching “[competitor name] alternative” to see why people want to switch
• Monitoring social media mentions for complaints

When you see consistent patterns in what users dislike about existing solutions, you’ve found validated pain points that a new product could address better.

Validating Pain Points Before Building

Finding pain points is just the first step. The best way to find pain points that are worth solving is to validate them before building anything.

Validation Checklist

Before committing to a solution, ensure your pain point:

• Affects enough people: Is the market size sufficient for a viable business?
• Has willingness to pay: Are people already spending money trying to solve this?
• Lacks good solutions: Are existing alternatives inadequate in specific ways?
• Aligns with your strengths: Can you realistically build something better?
• Has reachable customers: Can you actually get your solution in front of these people?

Run small experiments to validate demand. This could be a landing page, a manual MVP, or simply pre-selling the solution before you build it. If people won’t even engage with a simple test, the pain point might not be as intense as you thought.

Common Mistakes When Finding Pain Points

Even experienced founders make these mistakes:

1. Confusing Features with Pain Points

“People need a mobile app” is not a pain point. “People struggle to access critical information while away from their desk” is a pain point that might be solved with a mobile app.

2. Only Talking to Friends and Family

Your network will likely be too polite to give you honest feedback. The best way to find pain points is to talk to strangers who have no reason to spare your feelings.

3. Asking Leading Questions

“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a tool that…” is a leading question. Instead, ask open-ended questions about current struggles.

4. Ignoring Market Size

A pain point experienced by three people isn’t a business opportunity. Ensure the problem affects a large enough market.

5. Falling in Love with the Problem Too Quickly

Just because you’ve identified a pain point doesn’t mean you should solve it. Validate thoroughly before committing.

Conclusion: Start with Problems, Not Solutions

The best way to find pain points is to immerse yourself in the world of your potential customers. Listen to what they’re saying in online communities, watch how they work, analyze their support tickets, and validate your findings through systematic research.

Remember that pain point discovery is an ongoing process, not a one-time activity. Markets evolve, new problems emerge, and customer needs shift. Stay connected to your audience’s struggles, and you’ll always have a pipeline of validated opportunities to pursue.

Start today by choosing one method from this guide and dedicating an hour to uncovering real problems. Whether you’re mining Reddit threads, conducting interviews, or analyzing competitor reviews, the key is to listen more than you talk and observe more than you assume.

The most successful products aren’t built by visionaries who imagine the future - they’re built by researchers who deeply understand the present. Go find those pain points, validate them thoroughly, and then build something people actually need.