"I'm pouring my soul into every Substack newsletter, but my subscriber count is stuck at 47. Meanwhile, creators with way less experience are hitting 10K+ subscribers selling digital products I could create better. What am I missing?"
If that hits too close to home, you're not alone. I was there too.
Last year, I spent 6 months building what I thought was the perfect digital course.
450 hours of content creation.
A sleek website. Launch day arrived and...
7 sales.
Seven. Freaking. Sales.
My ego was crushed, my bank account lighter, and I was left staring at analytics that basically screamed: "Nobody wants this."
But that failure led to a breakthrough. After studying 100+ successful digital product launches and testing 23 different ideas, I discovered something counterintuitive:
The best digital products aren't created—they're discovered.
Then I discovered something even more powerful: AI can compress months of market research into hours of systematic validation.
Here's the exact 3-step system I now use to find product ideas that customers are already desperate to buy—turbocharged with AI that does the heavy lifting:
Step 1: The "Pain Point Safari" Method
Forget brainstorming sessions. The goldmine is in your audience's unfiltered complaints.
Where to Hunt:
Reddit comments (sort by "controversial" for raw honesty)
Facebook group rants
Amazon 1-star reviews in your niche
Twitter replies to industry leaders
What You're Looking For: People saying variations of: "Why doesn't anyone make..." or "I wish there was a simple way to..."
🤖 How AI Changed Everything For Me:
I used to spend entire weekends manually scrolling through Reddit threads.
Then I started using AI to research using AI prompt but the answers were not great.
"Find the top 20 complaints about [my niche] from Reddit in the last month. Show me what people are actually frustrated about, not what they say they want."
This triggered me to create my custom chatbot which help me write great prompt.
Here is the link of “Prompt Generator” in case you are sick of trying new prompts
So, the revised process looks like this ,
Step-1 :- I give this prompt to my “Prompt Generator” and it gives me great prompt
Step-2: - I copy the prompt and feed this into Perplexity since that is what I use for research
(Pro tip- Toggle the social button “ON” while researching pain points)
Step-3:- Evaluate the pain points of my ideal customer and start helping them
Real Example: Instead of 3 days hunting through design communities, AI found this pattern in 12 minutes: 47 people complaining "I'm so tired of spending hours making social media templates from scratch."
That became a $31K template bundle.
The crazy part?
I almost ignored that complaint because I thought "templates" were overdone. AI showed me it wasn't overdone—it was undersolved.
Pro Tip: Screenshot everything. Pain points you ignore today might be million-dollar opportunities tomorrow.
Step 2: The "Wallet Test" Validation
Here's where 89% of creators mess up: They ask people what they want instead of watching what they buy.
The 48-Hour Validation Sprint:
Day 1 Morning: Create a simple landing page describing your idea
Use Carrd (free) or Gumroad (takes 15 minutes)
Include a pre-order button priced 30% below intended launch price
Add social proof placeholder: "Join 1,247 others waiting for this"
Day 1 Afternoon: Share in 3 communities where your target audience hangs out
Don't ask "Would you buy this?"
Instead say: "Just launched pre-orders for [solution]. Link below."
Day 2: Count the clicks and email signups
🤖 My AI Breakthrough:
I used to write terrible landing page copy. Like, really terrible. Then I started using this simple ChatGPT:
Again I feed below prompt to my “Prompt Generator”
"Write a landing page for [product] that sounds like I'm talking to my frustrated friend over coffee. Make them think 'Finally, someone gets it.'"
What happened: My conversion rates jumped from 3% to 17% overnight. Same product, same audience, but AI helped me sound human instead of like a marketing robot.
The Hidden Money Leak I Found: AI helped me discover that my landing pages were answering questions nobody was asking. When I fed customer complaints directly into my copy, pre-orders tripled.
Success Metrics:
15%+ email capture rate = Strong demand
10+ pre-orders from organic sharing = Gold mine
People asking "When will this be ready?" = You win
Failure Signals:
Lots of likes, zero clicks = Polite rejection
"Great idea but..." comments = They won't pay
Radio silence = Wrong audience or weak concept
Step 3: The "Revenue Reverse Engineering" Hack
This step separates the dreamers from the earners.
The Formula: Look for existing products in your space that are clearly making money, then identify what's missing.
How to Spot Money-Making Products:
High-quality sales pages (they're reinvesting profits)
Active social media presence with engagement
Multiple product variations or frequent updates
Testimonials with specific results
The Gap Analysis: For each successful product, ask:
What do customers complain about in reviews?
What features are they requesting that don't exist?
What would make this 10x easier/faster/cheaper?
🤖 My AI Detective Work:
Here's where AI became my secret weapon. I found a $500 Instagram growth course with amazing reviews but one consistent complaint: "Love the strategies but the 6-hour videos are overwhelming."
I fed those complaints into AI using my “Prompt Generator”:
"Turn these customer frustrations into a simple solution. What would make this 10x easier to use?"
AI's suggestion: A 2-page checklist covering the same strategies. My result: $18K in the first month vs. their complicated course.
The breakthrough: AI helped me see that people didn't want more content—they wanted faster implementation.
The Unfair Advantage: While competitors fight over features, you solve the real problem: making the solution stupidly simple to implement.
Your Simple 2-Step Challenge (Start Tonight!)
Forget complicated 24-hour challenges. This is stupid simple:
🚀 Step 1 (Tonight, 15 minutes): Use AI to find 10 customer complaints in your niche. One ChatGPT prompt. Done.
🚀 Step 2 (Tomorrow, 1 hour): Turn the biggest complaint into a simple landing page.
That's it. Two steps.
The Payoff: By tomorrow night, you'll know if you have a $50K product idea or need to try another complaint.
Your Turn: What's the biggest complaint you've heard in your niche lately? Reply and tell me—I'll personally run it through my AI system and share what it finds. (Seriously, I love doing this stuff.)
The worst thing that can happen? You waste 75 minutes. The best thing? You discover your next big winner while your competitors are still guessing.
P.S. - If this saved you from building something nobody wants, hit that heart button below. These insights cost me 6 figures in mistakes to learn. The AI shortcuts cost another $30K to perfect. But they're yours for free.
P.P.S. - Your competitors are still doing manual research while you're using AI. That's not just an advantage—that's completely unfair. And I love it.
Fabulously helpful content, as always. Thanks.