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ToolDeck

Sales & Lead Capture

Reddit Pain-Point Miner

Finds the exact people complaining about your problem — fresh posts, ranked, in a sheet.

Saves about ~2 hrs per week

What it does

  • Scans target subreddits on a schedule for relevant posts
  • Uses AI to detect genuine pain points, not ads or fluff
  • Ranks posts by how clearly they describe the problem you solve
  • Logs everything to a sheet with links and suggested angles

How it works

  1. Subreddit scan runs on schedule
  2. New posts are pulled from the Reddit API
  3. AI scores each post for pain-point relevance
  4. Top matches logged to the sheet with links

What's included

  • Reddit API setup
  • Pain-point scoring prompt
  • Google Sheet pipeline

Set it up yourself

Follow these 4 steps in order. You will need accounts for: Reddit, Sheets.

Step 1: Get a Reddit API key

  1. Go to https://www.reddit.com/prefs/apps and click 'Create App' (at the bottom).
  2. Choose the 'script' type, name it pain-point-miner, and add a redirect URI (http://localhost:8080 works).
  3. Note the client_id (under the app name) and the secret.
  4. Keep your Reddit username and password handy — script apps authenticate as your account.
  5. Many tools (n8n OAuth2, PRAW in Python) let you paste these directly.

Watch out: Script apps are personal and rate-limited (~10 requests/min) — fine for manual scans, not mass scraping.

Step 2: List your target subreddits

  1. Create a sheet column listing 5-15 subreddits where your buyers hang out.
  2. Add a second column of search keywords: the problem phrases your customers use.
  3. For each subreddit note whether you can participate (check rules before ever commenting).
  4. Keep the list stable — changing subreddits weekly makes trend data useless.

Watch out: Community rules matter more than relevance: some subs ban outreach entirely — read the sidebar before responding to anything.

Step 3: Add the pain-point prompt

  1. Build a prompt: 'Score this Reddit post 0-100 for how clearly it describes the problem [your problem]. Return JSON: {score, painPoint, engagementOpportunity}.'
  2. Tell it to ignore posts that are ads, questions about tools that already exist for this, or meta posts.
  3. Add: for engagementOpportunity pick 'answer', 'commiseration', or 'none'.
  4. Paste with your API key into the workflow's AI step.
  5. Run against the last 50 posts of one subreddit to calibrate the score scale.

Watch out: Calibrate before automating — if scores cluster at 90, your scale is useless for ranking.

Step 4: Connect the sheet

  1. Connect Google Sheets to the workflow (n8n Google Sheets node or Zapier Sheet action).
  2. Columns: Date, Subreddit, Title, URL, Score, Pain Point, Engagement, Notes.
  3. After scoring, append top-N posts (e.g. score > 70).
  4. Add a daily schedule (e.g. 8am) — Reddit's API has a daily post cap for script apps.
  5. Run it for a few days and review the sheet for junk before acting on any post.

Watch out: Reddit's spam filter treats rapid comments from a brand-new account harshly — warm up the account by being genuinely useful for a week first.

Frequently asked questions

What does the Reddit Pain-Point Miner automation do?

Finds the exact people complaining about your problem — fresh posts, ranked, in a sheet. Scans target subreddits on a schedule for relevant posts

How much time does Reddit Pain-Point Miner save?

It is estimated to save ~2 hrs per week. Actual savings depend on your volume.

Which tools does Reddit Pain-Point Miner use?

It works with Reddit and Sheets.

What does Reddit Pain-Point Miner include?

Reddit API setup, Pain-point scoring prompt, Google Sheet pipeline.

Can I set up Reddit Pain-Point Miner myself?

Yes. The do-it-yourself guide on this page walks through 4 steps, from getting access to testing the finished automation.