Discover Pain by Watching, Not Asking
Find the real intensity of a problem by watching people work, because they can't self-report it
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 92%
Asking a user 'do you have a problem with X?' produces useless answers — people rate a terrible workflow as 'fine' because they don't know it could be better. Instead, have them screen-share and walk you through their actual daily workflow, or use the bad solution yourself, so you feel the intensity of the pain directly. Non-experts often can't even perceive their own inefficiency.
Origin
Gustaf Alströmer's user-research method taught in his YC Startup School 'how to talk to users' videos.
Core principles
- 01People rate broken workflows as acceptable because they lack a reference for better
- 02The intensity of a problem can't be self-reported — it must be observed
- 03Watching someone tab through the same Excel task a million times reveals pain they can't articulate
- 04Using the bad solution yourself is a valid substitute for watching a user
How to run it
- 1
Don't ask if the problem is painful
Avoid questions like 'is X working for you' or 'how hard is it to do Y' — users will say it's fine even when it's terrible.
Watch out Direct questions about problem severity produce false negatives; people can't rate pain they've normalized.
- 2
Have them screen-share their real workflow
Ask the user to walk you through their actual daily workflow in the area you're exploring, watching exactly what they do.
Pro tip Watch for manual repetition — non-technical people redo the same task hundreds of times because they can't automate it.
- 3
Or use the bad solution yourself
When you can't watch a user, experience the incumbent solution firsthand to feel how bad it is.
In the wild
To understand problems in EV charging, Gustaf's advice was to rent an EV and charge at all the non-Tesla chargers to experience the apps and systems directly. They turned out to be garbage — terrible apps and systems you only understand by using them.
→ Firsthand use revealed the true severity of the problem that users would have described as merely 'fine'.
Common mistakes
Relying on interview answers about problem severity
Users compare against their own limited experience, so they call a bad workflow 'kind of working,' hiding the real opportunity.
Assuming users know how inefficient they are
Non-technical users repeat manual tasks endlessly without realizing it's difficult, so you must watch to see the pain they can't name.
Is it for you?
Best for
Founders and PMs doing early customer discovery on workflow or productivity problems
Not ideal for
Validating problems where direct observation is impossible or the pain is already well quantified
From the transcript
“the best way for you to figure out what is the intensity of the problem is not to ask them but to watch them”
“a lot of non-technical people don't know how to automate things so they will do the same thing in like Excel like a million times”
“just rent an EV and go and charge at all the non-tesla Chargers and see what see what they say”
From the episode
Lessons from working with 600+ YC startups
Gustaf Alströmer (Y Combinator, Airbnb)