diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c75ed8c..5921298 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -24,3 +24,14 @@ You should see athletics data.
 ## Oauth2client version note
 
 gspread's docs are out of date as oauth2client changes in Feb 2016.  I have therefore set an earlier version in the requirements, because I'm busy and lazy.  No doubt a slight change to the fetching code about credentials will work with the later oauth2client.
+
+## Troubleshooting
+If the `pip install -r requirements.txt` fails this may be due to unmet dependencies on your host machine.
+
+On Ubuntu 14.04 you may need to run:
+
+  `sudo apt-get install python-cffi`
+  
+and
+
+  `sudo apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libffi-dev python-dev`