Jobs to Be Done Pain Points: Uncovering What Customers Really Need

You’ve built a product you’re proud of. The features are solid. The design is clean. But customers aren’t buying the way you expected. The problem? You might be solving the wrong job.

Understanding jobs to be done pain points is the difference between creating a product that sits on the shelf and one that becomes indispensable. When customers “hire” your product, they’re not buying features - they’re trying to make progress in their lives. The pain points they experience are obstacles preventing that progress.

In this guide, we’ll explore how to identify genuine jobs to be done pain points, distinguish them from surface-level complaints, and use them to build products customers actually want. Whether you’re validating a new idea or improving an existing product, understanding these pain points will transform how you approach product development.

What Are Jobs to Be Done Pain Points?

Jobs to be done (JTBD) pain points are the specific frustrations, obstacles, and anxieties customers experience when trying to accomplish a functional or emotional job. These aren’t just features they wish existed - they’re real barriers preventing them from making the progress they seek.

The JTBD framework, popularized by Clayton Christensen, reveals that customers don’t buy products; they “hire” them to get a job done. A pain point in this context is anything that makes the current solution inadequate, risky, or unsatisfying.

The Four Types of JTBD Pain Points

1. Functional Pain Points
These are tangible obstacles preventing task completion. For example, a project manager struggling to consolidate team updates from five different tools experiences a functional pain point - the job of “keep everyone aligned” takes too much time and effort.

2. Emotional Pain Points
These relate to how customers feel during the job. A founder hiring their first employee might experience anxiety about making the wrong choice. The emotional job “feel confident in my hiring decision” has pain points around uncertainty and risk.

3. Social Pain Points
These involve how customers are perceived by others. Someone hiring a presentation tool isn’t just trying to share information - they want to “look professional in front of clients.” Clunky templates create social pain points by making them appear less competent.

4. Ancillary Pain Points
These are secondary frustrations around the main job. A customer hiring a meal delivery service for “eat healthy during busy weeks” might face ancillary pain points like “remember to pause subscription when traveling” or “coordinate with spouse’s dietary preferences.”

How to Identify Real Jobs to Be Done Pain Points

Identifying authentic JTBD pain points requires going beyond what customers say they want and understanding the context of their struggles. Here’s a systematic approach:

1. Conduct Switch Interviews

Switch interviews focus on the moment customers moved from one solution to another. This reveals the pain points that were intense enough to trigger change.

Ask questions like:

• “What were you doing before you switched to this solution?”
• “What specific moment made you decide the old way wasn’t working?”
• “What almost stopped you from making the switch?”
• “What did you imagine life would be like with the new solution?”

The key is getting customers to recount specific moments, not hypothetical scenarios. Real pain points emerge from real stories.

2. Map the Job Timeline

Pain points don’t exist in isolation - they occur at specific moments in the customer journey. Map out the entire job from beginning to end:

• First thought: What triggers awareness of the job?
• Passive looking: What makes them start noticing solutions?
• Active looking: What pain points intensify the search?
• Deciding: What anxieties arise during evaluation?
• First use: What frustrations occur during onboarding?
• Ongoing use: What recurring pain points emerge?

Each stage has unique pain points. A customer hiring a CRM might experience “overwhelmed by options” during active looking, “worried about team adoption” when deciding, and “frustrated by data migration” during first use.

3. Listen to the Language of Struggle

Real pain points have emotional weight. Listen for phrases that signal genuine frustration:

• “I was spending hours every week…”
• “I couldn’t sleep worrying about…”
• “It was embarrassing when…”
• “I almost gave up because…”
• “Nothing seemed to work for…”

These phrases reveal intensity. A customer saying “it would be nice if…” is expressing a preference. A customer saying “I was losing clients because…” is describing a pain point worth solving.

Discovering JTBD Pain Points Through Community Research

While one-on-one interviews provide depth, online communities offer scale and spontaneity. Platforms like Reddit capture unfiltered conversations where people discuss their struggles in real-time.

When researching JTBD pain points in communities, look for:

• Workaround discussions: When people share complex workarounds, they’re revealing jobs their current tools don’t handle well
• Comparison threads: “X vs Y” discussions expose pain points with existing solutions
• Frustration rants: Emotional posts often highlight the most intense pain points
• Success stories: When people share what finally worked, they implicitly describe pain points they overcame

Using PainOnSocial for JTBD Research

While manual community research yields valuable insights, it’s time-consuming to track conversations across multiple subreddits and identify patterns. This is where PainOnSocial becomes invaluable for JTBD research.

PainOnSocial analyzes real Reddit discussions to surface validated pain points with context. For entrepreneurs applying the JTBD framework, this means you can:

• Discover which jobs people are struggling with most across 30+ curated communities
• See actual quotes showing how customers describe their pain points in their own words
• Access permalink references to read full context around each struggle
• Validate pain point intensity through upvote counts and AI-powered scoring
• Filter by category to focus on jobs relevant to your market

Instead of spending weeks manually searching communities, you get evidence-backed pain points organized by frequency and intensity. This accelerates your JTBD research while maintaining the authenticity of real customer language.

Distinguishing High-Value Pain Points from Noise

Not all pain points are worth solving. High-value JTBD pain points have three characteristics:

1. Frequency

How often does this pain point occur? A pain point experienced daily is more valuable than one encountered quarterly. Look for patterns - if multiple customers independently mention the same struggle, it’s likely frequent enough to matter.

2. Intensity

How much does this pain point hurt? Intensity is revealed through emotion, urgency, and consequence. A customer who says “this costs me hours every week” is experiencing higher intensity than one who says “this is mildly annoying.”

3. Economic Impact

Does this pain point affect the customer’s time, money, or reputation in meaningful ways? Pain points with clear economic consequences are more actionable. “I lost a client because of this” carries more weight than “I wish this was prettier.”

Validating Pain Points Before Building Solutions

Finding pain points is just the beginning. Validation ensures you’re solving problems people will pay to fix.

The Five Question Test

Before investing resources, ask:

1. Is this pain point preventing progress on a valuable job? Connect it back to the core job the customer is trying to accomplish.
2. Are people using inadequate workarounds? Workarounds signal the pain is real and current solutions are insufficient.
3. Would solving this pain point create meaningful progress? Not all pain points, once solved, dramatically improve the customer’s situation.
4. Can customers articulate the value of solving this? If they can’t explain what improvement would look like, the pain point might not be clear enough.
5. Are they already trying to solve this? Active solution-seeking indicates both awareness and motivation.

Test with Landing Pages

Create a simple landing page describing how you’d solve the pain point. Drive traffic from communities where you found the pain point discussed. Track sign-ups, email responses, and willingness to pre-order.

The copy should mirror the language customers used when describing their struggles. If you found people saying “I’m drowning in client feedback spreadsheets,” use that exact phrasing.

Common Mistakes in JTBD Pain Point Research

Confusing Solutions with Pain Points

Customers often describe solutions when asked about problems. “I need better reporting” isn’t a pain point - it’s a solution. The pain point is “I can’t show my boss which marketing channels are working, so our budget keeps getting cut.”

Dig deeper with “Why?” questions to get from solutions back to genuine pain points.

Ignoring Non-Consumption

Some of the best opportunities lie with people who aren’t using any solution - not because they don’t have the job, but because existing solutions are too expensive, complex, or time-consuming. These non-consumers have intense pain points you might miss if you only study current users.

Focusing Only on Functional Jobs

Emotional and social jobs are just as real as functional ones. The founder hiring an email tool isn’t just trying to “send newsletters” - they want to “feel like a legitimate business” and “stay connected with customers without being annoying.” Don’t ignore these dimensions.

Turning Pain Points into Product Strategy

Once you’ve identified validated JTBD pain points, translate them into product decisions:

Prioritization Framework

Create a matrix scoring each pain point on:

• Frequency (1-10): How often is this experienced?
• Intensity (1-10): How painful is it when it occurs?
• Willingness to Pay (1-10): Would customers pay to solve this?
• Competitive Advantage (1-10): Can you solve this better than alternatives?

Focus on pain points scoring highest on this combined metric. These represent your best opportunities for creating customer value and capturing economic value in return.

Feature Roadmap Alignment

Map every feature back to a specific pain point. If a feature doesn’t address a validated pain point in your research, question whether it belongs in your roadmap. This discipline prevents feature bloat and keeps you focused on jobs customers actually need done.

Continuous Pain Point Discovery

JTBD pain points evolve as markets mature, competition increases, and customer expectations rise. Make pain point research an ongoing discipline:

• Schedule monthly community research sessions
• Review customer support tickets for emerging patterns
• Conduct switch interviews with new customers
• Track churn conversations for pain points you’re not solving
• Monitor competitor reviews to see what pain points they’re missing

The companies that win aren’t those with the most features - they’re those who best understand and solve evolving customer pain points.

Conclusion

Identifying jobs to be done pain points transforms product development from guesswork into customer-driven strategy. By understanding the functional, emotional, social, and ancillary obstacles preventing customer progress, you can build solutions people genuinely need.

Remember: customers don’t buy products, they hire solutions to make progress. Your job is to understand what’s preventing that progress and remove those barriers more effectively than anyone else.

Start by listening to real customer conversations, map the job timeline to identify pain point moments, validate intensity and frequency, and prioritize ruthlessly based on economic impact. The pain points that matter most are those that occur frequently, hurt intensely, and prevent meaningful progress on jobs customers value.

Ready to discover validated pain points from real customer conversations? Explore what people are struggling with in your market today.