---
title: 'People: who has the problem, in their own words'
description: 'The section that finds the people who have your problem, quotes them with where and when they wrote, and counts them against the posts we read.'
slug: people
kind: feature
piece: people
keywords:
  - find customers
  - pain points
  - who has this problem
related:
  - competitors
  - where-every-line-comes-from
order: 12
updated: 2026-10-04
draft: false
---

In [the sample read](/docs/sample) we found 101 people with the problem, each one quoted in their own words with where and when they wrote. This section is part of the free read. It runs on page two once you've signed in, and most of what comes after takes its quotes from it.

## What it looks like on the sample read

For the sample we read 480 posts in nine places and marked 212 of them on topic. In those 212 we counted 101 people. 89 of them state the problem, 10 ask for a fix, and 2 talk about a product they use for it. The places with the most people were r/toddlers with 47 and r/Parenting with 19. One of the people who asked for a fix wrote this.

> I need to start meal prepping so I always have a plan and will try to have leftovers so I don’t have to cook every night he’s gone.
>
> Sourced · u/willowblush · r/toddlers · 9 July 2026

Every quote in the section opens the post it came from. Over the quotes, a few lines sum up what the people say, and each line points at the quotes it rests on by number.

## Where we look and how we count

For each idea we choose the places where these people write, from the forums of their line of work to the reviews they leave on apps. We search each site through its own search where a crawler can't go, from forums and social sites to app-store reviews and the open web. A place that fails to answer is marked failed in the section, and the rest of the read carries on.

We search in the words of your story first. Then we take the words the people we found actually use and search again, in the places where they spoke and a little wider. A person counts when they state the problem, ask for a fix, or talk about a product they use for it.

Posts that sell something are set aside, and so are posts that read as written by a machine. The sample set 12 of 113 quotes aside. A quote older than 24 months doesn't count. [How we judge](/how-we-judge) explains why the count is taken over the posts on topic.

## Which plan runs it, and how far it reads

Free runs this section once you've signed in, and you see who the people are and what they wrote. A bigger plan reads further.

| Plan | Places | Problem phrases | Posts read |
| ---- | ------ | --------------- | ---------- |
| Free | 6      | 3               | 120        |
| Pro  | 8      | 4               | 240        |
| Max  | 10     | 5               | 480        |

The sample ran on Max, which is why it read 480 posts.

## When we find nobody

When no post states the problem, the section says "No post in the places we searched states this problem, asks for a fix or talks about a product for it," under the label "no source says this." Before it says that, it runs a second, wider search with broader phrases. The section lists every place we searched with how many posts each one returned, the empty ones included, so you can see how hard we looked.

## What would change it

The section runs again when you change who has the problem or what the problem is. Say the change in one sentence, and [Iterating](/docs/iterating) shows what else runs with it. A search we already ran in the last 27 days reads the same posts again, so a re-run inside that time finds the same people. [Who already sells it](/docs/competitors) runs right after this one and looks up the products these people say they use.