How to Actually Find Business Ideas with AI
You will use Claude Code and an Apify token to find where your target customers talk on Reddit, pull their recurring complaints with sources, and turn them into an HTML report you can build a business around.
O que você precisa
An Apify account (free plan gives you $5 each month): apify.com?fpr=migueltorrez
Claude Code: claude.ai
A niche you want to research (the video uses recruiting)
Passo a passo
Start from problems, not idea lists
Skip asking a chatbot for 10 business ideas. Every business starts with a problem, so your goal is to find the complaints people repeat on Reddit inside one niche, then decide what service to build around them.
Create an Apify API token
Create an Apify account and click Go to console. Open Settings, then API & integrations, and create a new token. Copy it. Apify gives you $5 of free usage each month.
Apify sign-uphttps://www.apify.com?fpr=migueltorrez
Give the token to Claude Code and pick a niche
Open Claude Code and paste the Apify token into the chat. Choose the niche you want to research. Plan a two-step search: first a broad search for the subreddits where that niche talks, then a narrow drill-down into their problems.
Send the two-step research prompt
Paste the prompt below (swap "recruiting" for your niche) and send it. Ask for sources so every pain point is backed by real posts. Opus 4.8 works fine for this.
Research promptHey, Claude. Right now, I'm going to need your help. This is an Apify key. I want you to do two different searches. First, I want you to search subreddits where people are talking about recruiting. And then once you find those subreddits, I want you to drill down into them and find the pain points of these people. What are they having problem with in terms of recruiting? Is it the quality of the talent? Is it not enough volume? You let me know. I will also need the sources for each one of these problems. You can use a dynamic workflow for this.
Let the workflow run
Wait while Claude Code fetches the Apify details and runs both searches. In the video it took about 10 to 15 minutes and returned 51 pain points backed by 178 quotes.
Review the subreddits and main pain points
Check which subreddits it found (for recruiting: recruitertea, modern hiring, human resources, AskHR, recruiting, AskRecruiters). These are where your target customers hang out. Then read the main pain points it pulled from the top posts and comments.
Ask for an HTML report
Ask Claude Code to turn the findings into a simple HTML page so you can see the pain points, their weight and the quotes behind them.
Report promptCan you please create an artifact, just an HTML file, that will present all of these findings to me?
Read the report and pick a problem
Open the page and go through the main pain points, the ones coming up most, and each subreddit one at a time. Then use Claude Code to brainstorm solutions: build a first prototype for a SaaS, or define pricing, branding and deliverables for a service.
Fique atento a
Asking AI to simply give you business ideas: you get ideas not based on facts. Start from real complaints instead.
Dynamic workflows run much faster but consume your tokens at a much higher rate.
The raw findings in chat are hard to judge. Ask for the HTML report so you can see what is really behind each pain point.
