Customer Research

How to Discover Customer Pain Points Online in 2025

8 min read

Are you building a product that nobody wants? It’s a founder’s worst nightmare, yet it happens more often than you’d think. The reason is simple: too many entrepreneurs build solutions before truly understanding the problems their customers face.

Discovering customer pain points online isn’t just about sending out surveys or guessing what people need. It’s about finding real, validated frustrations that people are actively discussing right now. In this guide, you’ll learn exactly where to look and how to uncover pain points that can transform your business strategy.

Why Discovering Customer Pain Points Online Matters

Before you invest time and money into developing features, launching products, or creating content, you need to understand what keeps your customers awake at night. Pain points are the specific problems, frustrations, or challenges your target audience faces that your product or service can solve.

The beauty of discovering customer pain points online is that you’re accessing unfiltered, authentic conversations. When people post on Reddit, comment on YouTube videos, or ask questions in Facebook groups, they’re not trying to please you - they’re being honest about their struggles.

This raw feedback is gold for entrepreneurs because it reveals:

What problems people are actively trying to solve
How much they’re willing to pay for solutions
What existing solutions are failing them
The exact language they use to describe their problems
How urgent and painful these problems really are

Where to Discover Customer Pain Points Online

Reddit: The Goldmine of Authentic Conversations

Reddit is arguably the best platform to discover customer pain points online. With over 100,000 active communities (subreddits), you can find your target audience discussing their problems in depth.

Here’s how to use Reddit effectively:

Find relevant subreddits: Search for communities related to your niche. If you’re building a productivity tool, explore r/productivity, r/GetDisciplined, or industry-specific subs
Sort by “Top” posts: Look at the most upvoted posts from the past month or year to see what resonates
Read comments deeply: The real gold is often buried in comment threads where people share detailed experiences
Look for repeated complaints: If you see the same problem mentioned across multiple threads, you’ve found a validated pain point
Note the language used: Copy exact phrases people use - this is perfect for your marketing copy later

Online Communities and Forums

Beyond Reddit, numerous niche communities exist where people discuss specific problems:

Quora: Search for questions related to your industry and read through detailed answers
Facebook Groups: Join groups where your target customers hang out and observe discussions
Discord servers: Many industries have active Discord communities with real-time conversations
Industry-specific forums: Stack Exchange, Hacker News, IndieHackers, and niche forums for your vertical

Social Media Listening

Social platforms are treasure troves of customer complaints and frustrations:

Twitter/X: Search for keywords like “[your industry] problem” or “[your industry] frustrated”
LinkedIn: Look at posts and comments in industry groups
YouTube comments: Read comments on videos related to your niche - people often share what they’re struggling with
TikTok: Search hashtags related to your industry to see what younger audiences are talking about

How to Validate Pain Points You Discover

Not all pain points are created equal. Just because someone complains online doesn’t mean it’s a problem worth solving. Here’s how to validate what you find:

Check the Frequency

How often is this problem mentioned? If you only see it once or twice, it might be an outlier. Look for pain points that appear repeatedly across different threads, communities, and timeframes.

Measure the Intensity

Pay attention to the emotional language people use. Words like “frustrated,” “desperate,” “can’t stand,” or “nightmare” indicate high-intensity pain points. These are problems people are actively motivated to solve.

Look for Evidence of Attempted Solutions

The best pain points are ones where people have already tried to solve them. Comments like “I’ve tried X, Y, and Z but nothing works” show that people are willing to invest time and potentially money in finding a solution.

Check the Upvotes and Engagement

High upvote counts, numerous comments, and sharing indicate that many people relate to the problem. This helps you understand market size and demand.

Using AI to Discover Customer Pain Points at Scale

While manual research is valuable, it’s time-consuming and can be overwhelming. This is where AI-powered tools become game-changers for entrepreneurs looking to discover customer pain points online efficiently.

When you’re analyzing hundreds of Reddit threads or forum posts, you need a systematic way to identify patterns, score pain point intensity, and prioritize which problems to focus on. PainOnSocial automates this entire process by analyzing real Reddit discussions across curated communities relevant to your industry.

Instead of spending hours manually scrolling through subreddits, the tool uses AI to surface the most frequently mentioned and intensely felt pain points, complete with real quotes, upvote counts, and direct links to the original discussions. This gives you validation-backed insights in minutes rather than weeks. The scoring system (0-100) helps you prioritize which pain points represent the biggest opportunities, while the evidence-based approach ensures you’re building on real user frustrations, not assumptions.

For entrepreneurs validating ideas or product teams planning features, this approach transforms how you discover customer pain points online - making it both faster and more data-driven.

Organizing Your Pain Point Research

As you discover customer pain points online, you need a system to track and organize your findings. Here’s a simple framework:

Create a Pain Point Database

Use a spreadsheet or tool like Notion to track:

The pain point (in the customer’s words)
Where you found it (link to source)
Frequency score (how often it’s mentioned)
Intensity score (how painful it seems)
Category or theme
Potential solution ideas

Group by Themes

You’ll likely discover dozens of pain points. Group them into broader themes. For example, if you’re researching productivity tools, themes might include: time management, procrastination, team collaboration, or motivation.

Prioritize Using a Framework

Not every pain point deserves immediate attention. Use this simple prioritization matrix:

High frequency + High intensity: Your top priority - these are validated problems many people care deeply about
High frequency + Low intensity: Worth exploring but maybe not urgent
Low frequency + High intensity: Niche opportunities that might be profitable
Low frequency + Low intensity: Probably not worth pursuing

Turning Pain Points into Product Opportunities

Once you’ve discovered and validated customer pain points online, it’s time to turn insights into action:

Match Pain Points to Your Capabilities

Not every pain point is one you should solve. Consider:

Do you have the skills or resources to build this solution?
Is this aligned with your business vision?
Can you create something significantly better than existing solutions?

Test Your Solution Hypothesis

Before building anything, validate your solution idea:

Create a landing page describing your solution and see if people sign up
Post your solution idea in the communities where you found the pain point
Reach out directly to people who mentioned the problem and ask if your approach would help
Build a minimal viable product (MVP) to test with early users

Use Pain Point Language in Your Marketing

The exact words people used to describe their problems should appear in your marketing copy. If people say they’re “drowning in emails,” use that phrase in your headlines and descriptions. This creates instant resonance because you’re speaking their language.

Common Mistakes When Discovering Pain Points

Confirmation Bias

Don’t just look for pain points that confirm what you already want to build. Stay open to discovering unexpected problems that might lead to better opportunities.

Assuming Problems Based on Demographics

Just because your target customer is “small business owners” doesn’t mean they all have the same pain points. Dig into the specifics and let real conversations guide you.

Ignoring Low-Hanging Fruit

Sometimes the best opportunities are small, specific pain points that existing solutions overlook. Don’t dismiss a problem just because it seems too narrow.

Stopping After Initial Research

Customer pain points evolve. Make discovering customer pain points online an ongoing practice, not a one-time exercise. Set aside time monthly to check in on your communities and see what’s changed.

Conclusion

Learning how to discover customer pain points online is one of the most valuable skills you can develop as an entrepreneur. It’s the difference between building something people might want and building something people are desperately seeking.

Start by immersing yourself in the communities where your target customers gather - Reddit, forums, social media, and niche platforms. Listen more than you speak. Track what you find systematically. Validate the intensity and frequency of problems before committing resources to solutions.

Remember, the best products don’t create demand - they respond to existing, validated pain points that people are already experiencing. Your job is to uncover these problems and build solutions that truly matter.

Ready to discover what your customers are really struggling with? Start listening today, and let their authentic voices guide your next big move.