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Guide: Validate your idea with Trending Problems

Step-by-step use case: use Trending Problems to see what's gaining momentum and validate demand before you build.

This guide walks through a sample use case: you have an idea (or a feature) and want to check if people are actually talking about that problem - and whether the conversation is growing - before you invest more time building.

Use case

  • Goal: See what problems are trending in startup and tech communities and whether your idea fits.
  • Tool: Trending Problems.
  • Outcome: Topics with momentum and sentiment so you can validate demand and refine positioning.
  1. From the dashboard, open Trending Problems.
  2. You’ll see topics that are gaining momentum across Reddit, GitHub, YouTube, Stack Overflow, and Hacker News.
  3. Each topic has activity level and sentiment (e.g. negative = frustration, often a sign of real demand).

Step 2: Find topics that match your idea

  • Scan the list for themes that align with your product or feature (e.g. “async burnout,” “tool sprawl,” “pricing transparency”).
  • Negative sentiment - People complaining or struggling; good signal that the problem is real.
  • Rising activity - More posts and comments over time; suggests growing interest or urgency.

If your idea doesn’t appear yet, try related phrases or use Manual search with different keywords to see if the problem is discussed under different wording.

When you find a relevant trending topic:

  1. Open Manual search.
  2. Enter keywords or phrases that describe that problem (e.g. people frustrated with async communication or looking for simpler project management).
  3. Review the results: who’s talking, what they’re saying, and how strong the intent is.
  4. Use this to refine your positioning and messaging.

Step 4: Use the signal in decisions

  • Strong trend + negative sentiment - Good candidate to build or promote a solution; people are already vocal about the pain.
  • Weak or no trend - Either the problem is niche (smaller market) or people talk about it in different terms; try more searches before concluding.

Step 5: Revisit regularly

  • Trending Problems updates over time. Check back to see if your topic is gaining or fading.
  • On Growth and Scale, add Auto Search for your brand: Needle runs the same search again on its own on your schedule and surfaces new posts over time; optional digests in Settings.

Next steps

Ready to search real conversations?

Start a free trial and run Manual Search or set up Auto Search for your brand across the communities your plan includes.

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