Supported by Greenhaven Road Capital, finding value off the beaten path.
The most influential idea of the year, partly because it was new and I was starting from scratch, was the idea of jobs-to-be-done.
For a long time, I’d circled this idea. It was like being in a crowd of people, thinking you saw someone you knew, but unsure of the name. Maybe you knew it once. It was familiar. That was me.
I’d met JTBD in a Clayton Christensen book. But not until diving into the work of Bob Moesta, Ryan Singer, and Alan Klemet did I see the name, learn the etymology, and become fluent. Here’s a podcast on what I learned. Here’s a Kindle ebook. Here’s a pdf (JTBD). Here’s a tweet:
A warning. Once you see ‘jobs’ you can’t unsee them.
The Waiter's Pad 
[…] easy. Being the low-cost provider or being different both take extreme amounts of work. That said, jobs-to-be-done thinking may lead to a slightly easier […]
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[…] or not. Wood notes that, “there is no Underripe or Overripe tomato.” In the terms of Bob Moesta, this is the difference between a supply-side orientation and demand-side […]
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[…] no answer but there are reward options. Put on your JTBD hat, and think of the decision train. Forget the engine, what people say. Forget the caboose, what […]
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[…] expression has a real JTBD-ness to it. It’s not the how something is done but the what, and if it’s the right […]
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[…] returns or if they do, on the same timeline. Dining isn’t only about the food, there are many jobs to be done with a meal out. However, if one of your jobs is different (in scope or time), you can often hire […]
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[…] of regular startup advice was that a product had to be 10x better than the existing option. While JTBD offers a slightly different approach, the idea is a good one. People do switch from one thing to […]
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[…] explaining the idea of jobs-to-be-done, JTBD, Bob Moesta asks his interviewer if they like steak or pizza. ‘Well I like both’ they […]
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[…] Source: Bob Moesta Full JTBD post. […]
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[…] when an organization can deliver better products each year as judged by their consumers. Find the JTBD. The capacity for this is dictated by an organization’s culture. Does an organization allow […]
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[…] evolve to be better for the consumer. That is, to better fit the JTBD. In many cases that’s by making the same thing easier, cheaper, better, etc. Sometimes […]
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[…] For acceleration, we want to create fewer hurdles for an agent. If not possible, we want homogenous hurdles. Smartphones did this for ride sharing: the who (payments), where (location), and when (on-demand) were all integrated into an app. Another way to consolidate hurdles is find the JTBD. […]
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[…] This is good news. Rather than “learn to code” we should focus on “learn to solve problems”. Many of those problems will require tools. Some of those tools will be code. It is these kinds of problems: needs repeating, needs scaling, fits-with-existing-modules where code will be the tool for the job. Sometimes that code will be deep in the nesting dolls. Sometimes that code will be a simple spreadsheet cell. How many layers of UI depends on the problem to solve, the job to be done. […]
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[…] there is opportunity. Cruising, for instance, might have some hidden reasons and opportunities. The JTBD framework is built around this idea too. Economists call it stated and revealed […]
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[…] core then add some yoga. Like Instagram, Peloton noticed their users doing something else to get a JTBD done. And one way to serve customers better is to make the hacks part of the […]
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[…] college I was a campus tour guide and even then had an inkling of the JTBD. While the training consisted of learning dates and statistics, the visitors wanted to know […]
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[…] like ghost kitchens, has shifted the 30/30/30 economic equation. If the JTBD of food has changed then maybe the economics have changed too. Maybe future restauranteurs will […]
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[…] Sounds like a JTBD post […]
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[…] lives are full of agreements and conventions. If the things we do are online more the agreements and conventions in our lives will change. NFTs may be one such […]
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[…] number of speakers, bass output, whatever. Hillel meanwhile is the person who understands the job to be done – just make it sounds […]
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[…] Competing Against Luck, Clayton Christiansen‘s book about jobs to be done, he talks about the three jobs groups: functional, social, and emotional. Each depends on the […]
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[…] answer was Jobs To Be Done, told in Christensen’s et al. book Competing Against […]
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[…] businesses. Our neighbor likes reports that detail the pH, chlorine, and salt levels. For him, the JTBD is visual and […]
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