When Coffee and Kale Compete

Challenges and Hope

Focus on two things:

“The customers’ struggle to make life better.”
“How customers imagine their lives being better when they have the right solution.

We can’t build the products of tomorrow by limiting ourselves to the needs and expectations associated with the products of today. … When we focus on delivering customers’ progress—instead of what customers say they want—we are free to imagine a world where many needs and expectations have been replaced with new ones.

Three principles of data:

All models is wrong, but some are useful.
The most important figures are unknown or knowable.
The data will tell you whatever story you “torture” out of them.

Products do not last forever. Groth for every product will eventually stop, because new solutions to customer needs will arise. In order to survive, you have to innovate and eventually canibalize your own product.

The singular attention to customer motivation—instead of what customers say they want, their demographics, or what they do—is what distinguishes JTBD from other theories.

What is JTBD?

The goal is to understand how and why customers struggle.

The gap: where customers are now ⇔ where customers want to be

Job: “A job is one’s emotional struggle to make life better.” Done: “It’s done when one finds the right solution to overcome that struggle and make that better life happen.”

This gap creates a job. The job is done when the customer has a solution that takes them across the gap.

With cars, the question to ask is, “How did you come to realize you needed a car instead of some other form of transportation? How does owning a car make your life better?”

Needs change. You have to be aware of how customers needs’ evolve and be prepared to change your business to meet them.

A JTBD describes a motivation, not a functionality. You need to think about why a customer is doing something, not the specific way that they’re doing it? Why? Because if you reframe things to this perspective, you can find new, innovative ways of fulfilling this motivation.**

Breakthrough innovations happen when you reimagine or eliminate activities and functionality, not when you design for it.

You are stuck in the world of today when you focus on functionality, activities and tasks. … Breakthrough innovations happen when you reimagine or eliminate activities and functionality, not when you design for it.

Note: I need to reframe my thoughts like this. I’ve been focusing so much on solutions and so little on motivations it’s not wonder I haven’t hit on anything innovative yet.

It’s imperative to force yourself into the motivation mindset. Focusing on functionality or tasks is easy, but wrong.

What are the Principles of JTBD?

“Customers don’t want your product or what it does; they want help making their lives better.” Focusing on the product itself and ignoring the motivation limits your ability to innovate.
“People have jobs; things don’t.” The job is all about the person, not improving a thing.
“Competition is defined in the minds of customers, and they use progress as their criteria.” This is a hugely important point.
“When customers start using a solution for a JTBD, they stop using something else.”
“Innovation opportunities exist when customers exhibit compensatory behaviors.” Sometimes people use products to solve different jobs than what they were indented for. That’s okay. Capitalize on it.
“Solutions come and go, while jobs stay largely the same.” Human motivation changes slowly.
“Favor progress over outcomes and goals.” Customers need to feel successful the whole time they’re using your product, not just at the end.
“Progress defines value; contrast reveals value.” It’s not enough to ask a customer about a product. You also have to define a context for them to think about it in.
“Solutions for jobs deliver value beyond the moment of use.” You need to think about how a product improves a person’s life, even when it’s not being directly used.
“Solutions and jobs should be thought of as part of a system that work together to deliver progress to customers.” You have to consider how everything works together, not how it operates on its own.

Case Study: Dan and Clarity

“Ask customers what they’ve done, not just what they want.” Otherwise, customers only tell us what we want to hear.**

I always give the analogy of being a retail shop owner and hiding in the hack room and trying to learn from your customers by watching the closed-circuit television. You could watch [customers] come in, walk around your store, pick up things, put them down, try things on… or you could just walk out and ask them, ‘Hey, what brought you in here today? What are you looking for? What other places did you try in the past?’ Talking to customers about their motivations is where you’re going to learn the most. —Dan Martell

Case Study: Anthony and Form Theatricals

The job helps to create the constraints for the product. It’s much easier to design something for a specific purpose rather than as a general statement.

It’s interesting to me because helping writers understand what job parents are using their play for is more powerful than saying to them, ‘Write a movie, or write a play that a nine-year-old will like.’ When we know that parents have a job that involves their struggle to teach their children life lessons in an entertaining way, we can work with our clients to help them craft their content better. When we present it as a job to be done, the artist has a lot of leeway around what the story should do. —Anthony Francavilla

By understanding the underlying motivations of people, you can design products that serve those motivations.

When a customer describes a struggle, dig in. Ask them for specific examples.

Learn customer expectations at the point of purchase or first use.

“Be suspicious of the ‘impulse purchase’ concept. No purchase is random.”

Case Study: Morgan and YourGrocer

“How can you beat the competition? Eliminate the need for a customer to make a trade-off.”

You can’t depend on demographics. Oftentimes, what you think are attributes of your customers don’t match up with reality. “It was the customers’ situation—not personal characteristics—that determined why they bought.”

It’s not enough to observe customer behavior. You have to talk to them and understand why.

The Forces of Progress

*Forces of progress: **The *emotional forces that generate and shape a customer’s demand for a product.*

Four fundamental forces:

Push: People change only when circumstances push them to be unhappy with where they are.
- External pushes: A person’s life has changed, and the old way of solving a problem has not changed with it.
- Internal pushes: The customer decides for themselves that they want to make a change in how things are.
Pull: The push powers the change, but the pull directs where it goes.
- The pull for a better life: You need to be able to answer “How will customers’ lives improve when they have the right solution for their struggle?” It sometimes takes people a while to get to a point where they’re ready for this.
- The pull toward a solution: This is what drives a customer to a particular solution. It really depends on the context of the push.
Anxiety: Apprehensions of the customer about buying and using your product.
- Anxiety-in-choice: When the customer doesn’t know if the product can help them get their job done. This exists only when we’ve never used a particular product before. People goes through mental simulations and experience anxieties as a result. These anxieties drive away first-time customers. They can be reduced with trials, refunds and discounts.
- Anxiety-in-use: When the user knows a product can deliver progress, but certain qualities make them nervous about using it. These anxieties drive away repeat customers.
Habits: Existing practices people perform that prevent them from adopting a new product.
- Habits-in-choice: Forces that exist at the moment of decision and prevent a customer from switching from one product to another.
- Habits-in-use: People switch back to previous solutions not because they’re better, but because customers find that keeping their old habits is easier.

Push and pull must work together in harmony. The easiest way to get started is by studying pushes and pulls.

The bottom two forces are often overlooked. They shouldn’t be. Habits and anxieties are silent competitors. They’re just as powerful and threatening as actual competitors in the market. Moreover, solving customers’ habits is often an easy win.

Customer mental evaluation process:

Customer makes sense of their current problem.
They try to environ how life will be better when they overcome that problem.
They simulate what it is like to use a product and its effect on their struggle.

Jobs Remain While Solutions Come and Go

Every product is born with an expiration date. Why? The world is constantly changing.

Customer motivations rarely change, but how customers satisfy their motivations does.

Question: “Why are industry giants often forced off their own turf by small, young companies or industry outsiders?”

The company becomes complacent and narrow-minded towards competition.
With high barriers to entry, new entrants can only gain marketshare by inventing better and different ways of doing things.
As sales decline, incumbents are forced to either abandon their successful business model or reinvent it.

This process is called creative destruction. It’s *cyclical *and inevitable.

We should define which products compete against each other by whatever solutions customers believe they can use to get a job done.

You unlock your imagination as an innovator when you focus on why customers are trying to improve their lives.

Focus on what doesn’t change. That’s how you find the underlying job.

Be sure you understand what customers will stop doing when they start using your product. Understand the shift in perspective they have to undergo.

When You Define Competition Wrong

Common mistakes when applying jobs to be done:

Limiting my definition of competition to products that look and function similarly.
Not make sure a real struggle was taking place that customers were willing—and able—to pay for a solution.
Discounting information in customer interviews that contradicts your initial prejudices.
Oversimplifying the competitive landscape. You have to go beyond products that look and function similarly.
“Not every JTBD needs to be solved with a product that customers buy. Perhaps the most common reason that an innovation fails is that no one wants it.”

Know where the budget comes from. If you’re going to charge customers for a product, that money will be pulled from something else.

JTBD rejects the idea of nonusers or non-consumption. Just because consumers aren’t using your product, or another product of same type, doesn’t mean they are nonusers. This is another big difference between JTBD and other approaches to markets and innovation. JTBD insists that if consumers have a JTBD, they must be using *something *for it.

You will become a better innovator when you recognize that innovation is hard, there are no recipes for success, and there’s no “one right way” to make products and build businesses.

JTBD isn’t about selling a “recipe” for success. Instead, it focuses on:

What customers are struggling with
How they imagine their life being better when they have the right solution
What they do and don’t value in a solution.

Case Study: Omar and Transcendent Endeavors

This is a fantastic example of starting with nothing and forming a solution.

If you’re starting with a problem and trying to identify the target market, look for who’s putting the most energy into trying to find a solution for that problem.

When you interview someone, look for evidence of a struggle. If you can’t find it, there’s probably not an opportunity.

How to put it into practice.

“Begin by identifying a struggle. Start wide, and get progressively narrow.” This also applies to who is struggling the most. You don’t have to know off the top of your head.
“Find innovation opportunities when customers exhibit compensatory behaviors.”
Learn how customers imagine their lives being better.
Identify what customers value in a solution.

Case Study: Justin and Product People Club

Note: I should come back and reread this case study when I get closer to this point.

It’s really important to focus on the emotional motivations of users. It’s not just a purely functional thing. People consume products to make them feel certain ways.

Some places to look for struggle:

What are people complaining about on Twitter?
What topics are talked about during meet ups?

Some questions to ask your customers:

How did you first hear about X?
When did you first think about using X?
What was going on in your live when you signed up for X?
What did you try before using X?

Once you solve one of your customers jobs, the next question is “what will these customers struggle with next?”

It’s important to look for deep struggle rather than casual struggle. Look for people who are putting a lot of energy into a solution.

Aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators often move too quickly from observing a problem to hypothesizing a solution.

Case Study: Ash and the Lean Stack

You don’t have to change your existing product to increase revenue. Instead, you can create new, complimentary products that solve additional jobs. Changing the existing product can risk turning the product into a Swiss-army knife that doesn’t do anything particularly well. Ask the question: “What comes after?”

Shift from selling one product to selling a combination of products that work together as a system.

The System of Progress

Anyone who views innovation and customer motivation through the lens of systems thinking will gain a better understanding of how great products are created and sold.

*Interdependence: **All parts of a system form some kind of connection with each other.

You do not help customers make progress by optimizing parts of the system of progress individually. You improve the system by optimizing how those parts work together.

Realize a struggle (customer): My responsibility is to understand the struggle.
Search for and choose a solution (producer): This section is where the best customer data comes from. You can learn what customers value in a solution and their priorities.
Use solution against the struggle (producer): This is where the engineers and designers take over for the marketers and create the products.
Realize a better life (customer): If the solution solves the customers’ problems, then their job is done and they have a better life. Be sure to check that the customers got the life they were looking for.

This is a continuous cycle. A solution often leads to new struggles, or the person is freed to focus on other struggles. This happens over and over. There are always opportunities as an entrepreneur because the system is continuously evolving

As a customer evolves, a product that was a bad fit can become a good fit for them.

Opportunities exist when moving forward and backward in a system of progress. Ask “what came before?” and “what comes next?” You only need to tackle a slice of the system, but try to think of it as a whole.

Innovation and the System of Progress

An innovator’s responsibility is to study and improve the system. … The customer does not understand the system.

It’s important to see a customer’s wants as a symptom of a problem, not the problem itself. Your job as an innovator is to identify the underlying cause and solve that.

Doctors are able to treat patients successfully because they understand that the pains and discomforts that patients express are not the problem; they represent the patients’ interactions with their own bodies. Similarly, the needs, wants, and desired outcomes that customers express do not represent their problem; they represent the interactions between the customer and the system of progress. This is why customers’ stated preferences are unreliable and why customers’ “needs” and “wants” keep changing.

Customers can tell you about their struggle, but not how to solve it. The bottom line is they simply don’t have enough information to completely solve the problem on their own.

You don’t improve parts of a system, you improve the whole. The system is interdependent.

Systems can have fragile dependencies. If the dependencies change, the system can break.
Small changes can quickly cascade to larger and larger changes to a system.