Search community chat history to identify recurring pain points before building anything
Discord and Slack communities contain searchable conversations revealing what users struggle with most. Copy days or weeks of chat history into an LLM with the prompt 'list all pain points discussed' to identify recurring themes. The most common complaints signal the strongest demand.
When to use
Before building any product, when you have access to active communities where your target users congregate and discuss their problems openly
Don't do this
Relying only on direct customer interviews, which are time-consuming and may not reveal what people complain about naturally when you're not watching
7 Founders Who Did This
Used Discord server search function to find keyword 'niches'; discovered 'how do I find a niche' and 'how can I replicate this niche' were the most repeated questions in the community
Searched Airtable support forums to find recurring user pain points around connecting to external platforms via APIs
Engaged in Reddit's weekly Q&A comment threads for 3.5 months, posting SaveWise and asking for feedback. Used comments to understand what features the community wanted most before building.
Searched Reddit threads for recurring pain points using advanced Google queries filtering for problem-focused discussions
Joined Reddit, Discord, Slack, and Facebook groups where ChatGPT users gathered and monitored conversations to identify recurring feature requests
Uses VidIQ to extract top questions from YouTube comments to identify recurring pain points and content gaps
Searched Airtable community forums before building and found users repeatedly requesting API integration capabilities that did not exist.