Record what was actually said
Save the original link, date, and the context needed to understand the complaint. Write a short observation in your own words: “A team lead says they manually reconcile changes from two systems every Friday.” Do not copy a long post into a commercial site or turn a user's frustration into a fabricated testimonial.
Separate the observed workflow from your product idea. “Build an AI reconciler” is already a solution; “the weekly reconciliation takes too long and errors are hard to trace” is a problem you can investigate.
Find the buyer and the budget owner
Ask who experiences the pain, who is accountable for the result, and who could approve a new tool. A community commenter may be a user but not the buyer. If the work happens in companies, talk to people in that role outside the thread. Ask for recent examples rather than a vote on your proposed product.
Search for independent accounts of the same job. Similar complaints from different buyer groups may represent different markets. Narrow the first test to one group with one recurring trigger.
Respect the source and its rules
Link to the original discussion when you discuss a public lead. Avoid exposing usernames or private details that do not help readers understand the workflow. Before automating collection, storing posts, or using Reddit data in a monetized product, review Reddit's current Developer Terms and obtain any required permission. Our Problem Finds section does not publish Reddit data without commercial access.
Run a small independent validation
Write a five-line brief: buyer, trigger, workaround, cost, and potential smallest useful result. Then interview buyers who have the job. Ask to see the last case, compare existing alternatives, and offer a limited manual pilot if the pain is real.
If the problem does not repeat, the thread may still have taught you something. Archive the lead with its source and move on. If it does repeat, use the 48-hour validation plan before committing to software.
