Find the Existing Workaround
How are they hacking around it today? No workaround means the problem isn't painful enough.
How are they coping today? If a problem is real, users are already solving it with some clumsy method. Finding that method is worth more than ten interviews. Users "hire" this workaround to get the job done—which is exactly the jobs-to-be-done lens: they buy your product to accomplish what they were already accomplishing by hand. jtbd-wiki
What you'll run into:
- You build something five times more complex than what users actually need
- Users say they want it, but you can't explain how they survive without it today
- After launch, users go back to their old method
No workaround means one of two things: the problem isn't painful, or it's painful enough that nobody can cope. Don't build for the first; the second is a big opportunity. Tell them apart by whether users have paid some other price—skipping the task entirely, or paying someone to do it.
The reverse holds too: if the workaround is already good enough, don't build. Users need several times the benefit to switch from a working solution, not a marginal improvement.
Where to look
Workarounds hide in plain sight. Go find them:
| What to look for | What it means |
|---|---|
| A self-built spreadsheet | The clearest needs. Column names are fields, colors are statuses |
| A pile of screenshots and saved chats | They're "saving it to find later"—the core need is retrieval |
| A little script they wrote | Painful enough to learn to code. These are your best early users |
| Someone they hired to do it | They're already paying, and the amount is a pricing anchor |
| Several tools stitched together | Your opportunity is in the seams, not inside any one tool |
| They gave up on the task | Real need, but too costly to hack. Building it could open a new market |
The last one is the hardest to find, because users don't volunteer things they've abandoned. Ask: "Is there something you used to want to do, but decided it was too much hassle?"
How to read it
Once you have a workaround, break it down along four lines—they sketch out the whole product:
- What information does it keep? The columns they track are the fields you must have; the columns they don't have, don't add on your own. This line gives you the data model.
- Which step annoys them most? The step they complain about isn't necessarily the slowest—it's usually the one most error-prone and most feared. This line gives you the primary task.
- What does it cost them? Two hours a week, or eight hundred yuan a month. This number is the ceiling for your pricing. This line gives you the business model.
- Why haven't they replaced it? Nothing exists, or something exists but doesn't fit. Where it doesn't fit is your entry point.
The first line is the easiest to ignore. Columns absent from their spreadsheet are usually things they genuinely don't need—and AI-generated interfaces love to invent a pile of extra fields, all of which become pure burden.
How you ask matters too: don't ask "what do you need?"—ask "how do you do it today?" The first gets you a list of wishes; the second gets you the real workaround. And add "can you show me?" to the interview script; having them walk through the hack live beats listening to their description any day.