Key takeaways
📈 Market needs represent the real gaps, frustrations, or desires customers experience.
🔎 Identifying them ensures you’re solving meaningful problems rather than building in isolation.
🧪 A structured process (assumption mapping, competitor analysis, user interviews, quantifying problems, prototyping, and testing) helps turn ideas into validated insights.
🔦 Market segmentation (demographic, geographic, behavioral, psychographic) ensures solutions are tailored to the right audience.
👥 Cross-cultural research requires re-learning from scratch, respecting local behaviors, cultural norms, and regulations; assumptions from one market rarely translate directly to another.
🐝 Avoiding bias in research is critical. UXtweak helps reduce bias with features such as user interviews, session recordings, tree testing, and assumption mapping.
Most market expansion efforts have the same story: the creators thought they understood the market needs, but reality told a different tale.
Maybe customers didn’t use the product the way it was intended. Maybe the “pain point” wasn’t painful enough. The winners? They’re the ones who listened, observed, and built around real struggles.
This guide shows you how to do the same.
What are market needs?
Market needs are essentially the problems, desires, and gaps that exist in a target market; the things customers want solved, improved, or fulfilled.
They can take a few different forms:
- Functional needs → Practical problems people want to solve (e.g., faster delivery, easier onboarding).
- Emotional needs → How customers want to feel (e.g., secure using a banking app, proud wearing a brand).
- Social needs → What helps them connect, belong, or gain status (e.g., platforms that build community, eco-friendly products that signal values).
When businesses talk about “identifying market needs,” they’re really asking:
👉 What do people struggle with today?
👉 What’s missing in their current options?
👉 What would make them choose us over competitors?
When you figure that out, you stop “selling” and start offering something people truly need, instead of something you just want to put on the shelf.
How to determine market needs
Understanding what your market truly needs is the first step to building a product that sticks. These eight steps will help you uncover real user pain points and opportunities.
📍Define your assumptions
Begin with what you believe to be true. What problem do you think exists, who experiences it, and how might your solution fit in? Writing it down gives you a baseline to validate later.
Marketers in communities like r/marketing recommend pairing assumptions with a quick PESTLE analysis.
Mapping political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors helps surface both enablers and barriers that might affect your market.
On a more practical level, some founders recommend flipping the conversation.
💡 Pro Tip
Instead of pitching your product right away, ask people: “If you had a magic wand to make problems go away, what would you fix first?”
If your idea naturally shows up in their answers, it’s a strong signal you’re addressing a real need rather than forcing a solution.
📍Perform a competitor analysis
Scan the market. Look closely at competitor offerings, customer reviews, and feedback forums. You’ll often find gaps or frustrations that signal unmet needs.
A smart trick here is to scan competitors’ negative reviews.
Customers will tell you exactly where current providers fall short. If you can flip those weaknesses into your strengths: faster service, better quality, a friendlier interface, you’ve carved out your angle in a “saturated” market.
📍Talk to potential users
Engage directly with potential users and listen closely.
Interviews, surveys, or even casual conversations can surface pain points you might never anticipate, often revealing insights far richer than quantitative data alone.
Community advice says to go beyond casual “would you use this?” questions.
The Mom Test approach is a favorite: show a simple demo or prototype and let people react naturally, without leading them. Patterns in what excites or frustrates them are far more valuable than polite “yes” answers.
💡 Pro Tip
Remember that you don’t need to invent something brand new; often the gap is in execution. Think Uber or Netflix: they didn’t invent taxis or movies, they just made them more convenient and accessible. Ask users not just what they use but what frustrates them about existing solutions. That’s where unmet needs often hide.
📍Quantify the problem
Patterns are useful, but numbers make them real. Measure how widespread the problem is, how often it occurs, and how much it costs people in time, money, or effort.
Did you know?💡
Discussions in r/marketing point out the value of starting with secondary data sources like Google Trends, government reports, or social media listening.
These often reveal demand gaps before you commit time and money to primary research.
And remember saturation isn’t always the enemy, it signals demand.
One Redditor shared how a friend opened a coffee shop two doors down from Starbucks.
By being faster, friendlier, and offering a better vibe, he stole their line and eventually outlasted them. The lesson? High competition can still equal high opportunity if you measure where incumbents underdeliver.
📍Prioritize the needs
Not every need deserves attention. Some problems are common but minor, while others are rare yet critical. Rank them based on urgency, frequency, and potential impact.
Try looking for sub-niches.
Maybe your city has five car washes, but if they’re all self-service, the gap might be for full-service or mobile. Ranking needs based on urgency, frequency, and convenience gaps, can help you find opportunities in “crowded” spaces.
📍Create a prototype
Don’t just describe your idea, let people interact with something tangible. Even a clickable mockup or landing page can reveal real demand.
It is even suggested to put up a pre-launch site to collect emails; if no one signs up, that’s a signal in itself.
📍Test your prototype with target users
Test your prototype and observe how users engage with your prototype. Take note of where they pause, stumble, or get excited. Actions often reveal insights that words alone can’t capture.
With UXtweak’s prototype testing tools, you can see these behaviors in real time, uncover hidden usability issues, and validate design decisions before investing in development.
See how it works for yourself in these demos! 🔽
Transform raw user behavior into clear directions for perfecting your prototype. 🐝
Instead of relying only on conversations, founders suggest running a “payment simulation.”
Show users a pricing page and let them click as if they were buying, even if no money changes hands. It’s the digital equivalent of seeing who actually reaches for their wallet.
One crucial piece of advice here is to “fail small.”
Rather than making a big bet upfront, test lightweight prototypes that give you reliable signals. Each cycle helps you validate demand without over-investing too early.
💡 Pro Tip
Another powerful approach to uncovering market needs is the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework. Instead of focusing on demographics or features, JTBD helps you frame user needs as the “jobs” people hire a product to do. This lens often reveals deeper motivations and unmet opportunities that traditional research misses.
📍Refine your prototype and iterate
Take the user feedback, adjust, and run the loop again. Each cycle sharpens your understanding of the market and pulls you closer to a product that truly meets its needs.
Several community members even emphasized the importance of testing with money or commitment, not just words. A practical trick: when friends say they’d “totally buy” your idea, follow up with “Great, how many would you like to order?”
If they hesitate, it’s a reality check that helps you refine before scaling. At this stage, it’s important to remember that your goal isn’t perfect rigor, but practical insight.
As Teresa Torres, Product Discovery Coach, explains:
When we’re doing research for business, we don’t have to have the rigor of academic research. We’re not trying to publish academic papers on this. We’re trying to make a good business decision.
This mindset helps you stay focused on finding enough evidence to move forward confidently, instead of overanalyzing.
Did you know?💡
Marketers and product managers share in communities like r/prodmgmt that the key is to focus on the problem, not the solution. Identify who has it, how they currently deal with it, and how costly it is in time, money, or effort.
👉 Combine qualitative research (interviews, JTBD, user observation) with quantitative data (surveys, market reports, competitor analysis).
👉 Use methods like Conjoint Analysis to see which features matter most, and iterate based on real user insights before building.
Examples of market needs
Now let’s look at how some popular brands identified and acted right upon market needs:
Airbnb: Transforming the hospitality industry
Identified Market Need → Travelers sought affordable, authentic, and personalized lodging experiences beyond traditional hotels.
User Engagement & Research → Airbnb’s founders began by renting out air mattresses in their San Francisco apartment to attendees of a design conference, gathering firsthand feedback. They expanded their research by conducting interviews with both hosts and guests to understand pain points and desires.
Outcome → Airbnb transformed the hospitality industry by creating a platform that connects travelers with local hosts, offering unique accommodations and experiences.
💡 Pro Tip
Treat your first launch as an experiment. Use it to validate assumptions, learn from real behavior, and iterate quickly before expanding.
Slack: Enhancing team communication
Identified Market Need → Teams struggled with inefficient communication tools that hindered collaboration and productivity.
User Engagement & Research → Slack’s development stemmed from the internal communication challenges faced by a gaming company. The team observed user frustrations, conducted usability tests, and iterated on features based on real-time feedback.
Outcome → Slack became a leading team collaboration tool, streamlining communication and integrating with various workplace applications.
💡 Pro Tip
Develop prototypes or MVPs and test them with users to gather feedback, refining your product to better meet their needs.
Warby Parker: Disrupting eyewear retail
Identified Market Need → Consumers faced high prices and limited access to stylish eyewear.
User Engagement & Research → Warby Parker conducted surveys, analyzed customer feedback, and observed the eyewear purchasing process to identify pain points. They introduced a home try-on program to gather user preferences and improve product offerings.
Outcome → By offering affordable, fashionable eyewear with a convenient online shopping experience, Warby Parker disrupted the traditional eyewear industry.
💡 Pro Tip
Pay attention to how users interact with your product or service, noting areas of friction or delight to inform improvements. Surveys, feedback, and observation reveal the frustrations and gaps in existing solutions.
Market needs and segmentation
Market needs are the real problems, desires, or gaps that consumers experience and are willing to pay to solve. Identifying these needs ensures your product or service is actually relevant, not just something you assume people want.
Did you know?💡
In an age of over-saturation in most industries, marketers and product managers share a very innovative way of identifying friction in communities like r/startups.
Keep a daily “frustration log” for 2–3 weeks. Write down every time you or someone around you has a bad experience with a product, service, or process. Then review it to spot patterns.
Market segmentation is the process of dividing a broad market into smaller groups of consumers who share similar characteristics or behaviors. Segmentation ensures your product, messaging, and marketing are tailored to the right audience.
Common Segmentation Types:
- Demographic → Age, gender, income, education
- Geographic → Location, climate, city size
- Behavioral → Buying habits, product usage, brand loyalty
- Psychographic → Lifestyle, values, personality, interests
💡 Pro Tip
Start with market needs first, then segment your audience to focus on the users who will gain the most value from your product.
Recruiting participants for user research
Finding the right people to talk to can make or break your research. It’s not enough to ask friends or colleagues for feedback; you need participants who represent your actual target users.
Looking to recruit participants? 🙋♀️
UXtweak’s User Panel gives you instant access to 155+ million people worldwide, so you can find real users who truly represent your target audience. With advanced filters for demographics, location, and language, you’ll always test with the right participants—not just whoever’s available.
Recruiting is fast, affordable, and effortless. No more chasing down testers or relying on colleagues for feedback—UXtweak delivers quality participants on demand.
Learn more about the panel and start recruiting right away! 🐝
Here are practical ways to recruit them:
👉 Tap into existing networks: Start with LinkedIn, Slack groups, Reddit communities, or industry forums where your target audience hangs out. A well-crafted post that explains what you’re testing and how much time it will take often brings in your first few participants
👉 Leverage customer lists: If you already have early sign-ups, newsletter subscribers, or even LinkedIn followers in your niche, reach out directly. People who’ve shown interest are usually open to giving feedback.
👉 Offer incentives: A $20–$50 gift card, discounts, or early access to your product can motivate people to participate. Keep the reward proportional to the time you’re asking from them.
👉 Use a research panel: For a faster, more reliable option, platforms like UXtweak’s User Panel let you recruit participants from a pool of more than 155 million people worldwide. You can filter by demographics, job roles, or behaviors, ensuring you’re speaking with the exact audience your product is designed for.
👉 Recruit through your product: If you already have a live prototype or landing page, add a small callout, “Want to test early features and shape the product? Sign up here.” It’s a simple way to attract motivated testers.
Personas turn raw research into something tangible: a snapshot of your users’ goals, frustrations, and behaviors. If you’re new to building them, this short video walks you through how to create a UX persona step by step.
Market needs in a cross-cultural context
When entering a new market, especially one with different cultural, social, and economic dynamics, identifying needs is essentially about re-learning from scratch.
💡 Local context matters more than assumptions
What works in one market might flop in another.
For instance, payment habits differ (credit cards dominate in the U.S., while digital wallets are everywhere in Asia). Start by mapping local user behaviors before assuming your product solves the same problem globally.
As Chui Chui Tan, a cross-cultural strategist, advisor and author of Research for Global Growth: Strategies and Guidance for Cross-Cultural Insights explains in UXtweak’s podcast,
When it comes to cross-cultural research, you are not just studying what people say or what they do, you have to think about the whole cultural ecosystem.
Needs don’t exist in isolation; they’re shaped by values, infrastructure, and even social dynamics.
💡 Language and meaning aren’t one-to-one
As Tan points out, direct translations often miss nuance.
A “budget” product might be viewed positively in one culture (affordable, smart purchase) but negatively in another (cheap, low-quality). Always validate messaging with locals.
💡 Cultural norms shape user behavior
Tan brings light to the fact that decision-making can be individualistic in Western markets but more collective in Asian or Middle Eastern markets.
This affects how users adopt products, who you interview, and how you interpret their responses.
💡 Regulations and infrastructure redefine pain points
Needs are shaped by the environment: GDPR in Europe changes how you can collect data, while inconsistent internet access in some regions may make lightweight apps a necessity.
💡 Trust is built differently
In some markets, word-of-mouth and personal recommendations carry more weight than advertising. Tan advises to lean on community networks and local influencers when researching and testing.
When it comes to identifying market needs in a cross-cultural context, the 4 buckets exercise is a powerful tool propounded by Tan.
You’ll have four buckets. That first bucket is known facts. The second bucket is a strong hypothesis. Third one is weak hypothesis. And then the fourth one is the unknown bucket. It’s an exercise that you can bring the relevant stakeholders…
Bring them together to say, “Okay, what do we know about this market?” And then put it according to the buckets. The trick here is that a lot of people will tend to want to put everything in the Known bucket because everyone thinks they know the market.
🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode about cross-cultural research below!
Avoiding bias during user research
When exploring cross-cultural market needs, cognitive bias is one of the sneakiest pitfalls.
It can make you believe a product or feature is needed, when in reality, that belief is just a reflection of your assumptions, cultural lens, or prior experiences.
As Joshua Porter puts it,
When we do a lot of user research, it’s easy to feel confident… But if you do user research well, you will always find something that is surprising. No matter how much research we do, no matter how much time we spend with our customers, we can’t completely know them. And I feel like the goal of user research should be to find those moments.
This is exactly why staying alert to bias matters. Without it, you risk filtering out the very surprises that could guide you toward unmet market needs.
Bias can appear in multiple ways:
- Confirmation bias: Seeking out responses that match what you already think
- Leading questions: Framing questions in a way that encourages a specific answer
- Selection bias: Talking only to easily accessible users who aren’t representative of the market
- Cultural bias: Interpreting behaviors through your own cultural norms instead of understanding them in context
These biases can skew research results, potentially leading to investment in ideas that won’t resonate in the target market.
Practical tips to avoid bias
Bias can creep in unnoticed, but with the right practices, you can uncover genuine insights instead of just confirming your assumptions.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Write neutral, open-ended interview questions
- Avoid “Do you like this feature?” and instead ask “How do you currently solve [problem]?”
- Instead of “Would you use an app that helps manage your groceries?” ask “Tell me about the last time you managed your groceries; what was easy, and what was difficult?”
- UXtweak’s User Interviews tool can be of great help to structure and test your questions before launching the study, ensuring neutrality.
Want to include user interviews in your UX research?
Try UXtweak’s Live Interviews!
Seamlessly schedule, recruit, conduct, and analyze your all user interviews.
2. Assumption mapping
- List all assumptions about the user, market, and product. Categorize them as known, unknown, and high-risk hypotheses.
- Test high-risk assumptions first; don’t let untested beliefs guide decisions.
- Documenting assumptions and hypotheses can be done efficiently using UXtweak’s Research Repository, linking them directly to study results for easier validation.
3. Recruit a representative sample
- Include users across demographics, geographies, and cultural backgrounds relevant to your market.
- Avoid only interviewing early adopters or those convenient to reach.
- Use Participant Recruitment tools to filter and invite users based on key criteria to ensure diversity.
4. Observe user behavior
- Users may not articulate their needs accurately; watch their behavior to uncover unmet needs.
- For example, someone may say they want a “simpler app,” but observing them reveals they struggle with notifications, not navigation.
- Using UXtweak’s Session Recordings and Tree Testing can be very helpful to capture authentic behavior and identify friction points without bias.
5. Iterate and cross-validate findings
- Don’t rely on a single round of research and validate insights across multiple studies and methods (interviews, surveys, behavioral analytics).
- You can combine tools like Card Sorting, Tree Testing, and Usability Testing provided by UXtweak to cross-verify patterns and reduce the impact of subjective interpretations.
Bias can make you confident about the wrong market need.
By structuring questions carefully, mapping assumptions, recruiting diverse users, and validating behaviorally, you can find real insights that translate into products people truly want, not just what you think they want.
💡 Pro Tip
Read more about triangulation in qualitative research in this article.
Identify market needs with UXtweak
UXtweak is a full-featured UX research tool built to help you discover real market needs, validate product ideas, and make confident decisions based on evidence, not assumptions. Its suite of tools covers every stage of research: from recruiting participants to sharing findings.
Key Features:
- Usability Testing: Test prototypes with real users and spot friction points early.
- Surveys & Polls: Gather direct feedback to validate assumptions.
- Session Recordings: Watch how users interact with your product to uncover hidden challenges.
- Tree Testing: Understand navigation and information architecture pain points.
- Assumption Mapping: Identify and validate assumptions about user needs before investing in development.
Pricing
- Free Plan (€0/month) – Forever free, a great way to experiment with UX research tools at no cost. Includes access to all tools, 15 responses/month, 1 active study, and 14-day access to results.
- Business Plan (€92/month, billed annually) – Ideal for teams that require essential UX research tools and features for their projects. Includes 50 responses/month (upgradable), 1 active study (upgradable), unlimited tasks per study, 12-month data retention, reports and video exports.
- Custom Plan (Pricing upon request) – Tailored for organizations with advanced research needs, providing unlimited active studies, customizable responses, live interviews, access to a global user panel and much more.
🐝 What makes UXtweak stand out
- All-in-one platform: run both moderated and unmoderated studies, test prototypes or live sites, record sessions, and conduct tree tests & card sorting, all under one roof.
- Strong participant recruitment options: UXtweak’s User Panel spans 130+ countries and offers 2,000+ targeting attributes so you can bring in users that fit your audience profile. Quality checks and free participant replacements mean more reliable feedback.
- Powerful analytics & visualization: Data isn’t just collected, it’s visualized with heatmaps, session recording replays, first-click tests, navigation structure insights, and more.
- Great for teams & stakeholders: Intuitive interface, strong collaboration tools, tools to help you present findings clearly. Users often cite UXtweak’s ease of setup and quality of support as differentiators.
🌟 What users are saying
- On G2, UXtweak gets 4.7/5 stars, with 86% giving it 5 stars. Users especially praise its intuitive interface and the variety of tests you can run without juggling different tools.
- Reviewers from educational settings say it’s a boon: easy to use, great for teaching, and allowing students to run real UX studies with minimal setup.
- Users also highlight how quickly you can recruit participants and get reliable data using its panel, less hassle and stronger validity in feedback.
🔍 Why it’s strong for market needs analysis
- You can test early prototypes and concepts before building too much; get real answers fast.
- You can uncover unexpressed needs by watching behavior (session recordings, first-click tests) rather than only relying on what people say.
- Validates assumptions early with well-targeted users, so you avoid spending on features nobody needs.
Wrapping up
Identifying market needs is about digging deeper than surface-level feedback.
It requires listening closely, observing real behaviors, and validating insights until you’re certain you’re addressing a gap that truly matters.
This is exactly where UXtweak shines. The platform combines usability testing, surveys, session recordings, and assumption mapping to help you collect both qualitative and quantitative insights.
And with access to UXtweak’s global User Panel of 155M+ participants, you’ll always have the right people to test your ideas with; whether you’re exploring a new market or refining an existing product.
👉 Ready to uncover real user needs? Start testing with UXtweak’s free trial today!
📌 Example: