In 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 situation.
Clayton’s classic example is the milkshake. It functions as nutrition and provides emotional entertainment during a commuter’s morning.
In the afternoon that same milkshake provides a functional snack and an emotional connection between parent and child as an after-school treat.
Lovepop co-founder Wombi Rose talked about the depths those jobs have.
“It’s about helping you with your occasions. We want to make sure you can quickly send a thoughtful and creative gift. We’ve found that everyone wants to be more creative and thoughtful but it takes time. We want to help you with those two challenges. We’ll remind you of those occasions and make it super easy to do something that is creative and thoughtful where what you do is based on your relationship.”
Meaningful messages are costly.
In high school, one of my made-up start-ups was a celebration card company that sent out cards on your behalf. Rather than your forgetful self, hire us to send Aunt Jan’s card on time every time. As my friends pointed out, it kinda took the charm out of the whole experience.
Rory Sutherland, the alchemist, points out that digital wedding invitations work – so long as they’re costly. A song works. A poem worlds. Something that demonstrates an investment works.
Lovepop’s attempt is to link people’s lives to the cards they buy. Does your special someone have a certain plant they love, like a Japanese Maple? Do they like a certain animal? There’s a card for that.
Jobs gives language to discuss the depths. It’s like the wavelength spectrum. We can only see so much. That’s our visual language. But our tools give us the ability to understand a whole lot more. Just like jobs.
The Waiter's Pad 