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Foundation · Startup

Jobs To Be Done (JTBD)

The Jobs To Be Done framework, popularised by Clayton Christensen, flips product thinking from 'what features should we build?' to 'what progress is the customer trying to make in their life?' People don't buy products — they hire them to get a job done. Understanding the job, the struggling moment, and the forces pushing and pulling a customer toward or away from a solution unlocks breakthrough positioning, messaging, and product decisions.

When to use this framework

  • →You're struggling to understand why customers churn or don't convert
  • →Product and marketing teams disagree on what the customer actually values
  • →You're entering a new market and need to understand demand from scratch
  • →Your positioning feels feature-led rather than outcome-led
  • →You need to identify your real competitors (including non-consumption)

Before you start

Ideally, conduct 5-10 customer interviews using the JTBD switch interview technique before filling this in. Focus on customers who recently bought your product (or a competitor's).

Related:Value Proposition Canvas Positioning Statement Template Dunford's 5 Components of Positioning

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Worked Example

Slack (early days, 2014)

1. The Core Job

Write the job as: 'When I [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome].' The job is functional — it describes the progress the customer is trying to make, not a feature.

When I'm working on a project with a distributed team, I want to keep everyone aligned and reduce back-and-forth, so I can move faster and spend less time in meetings and email chains.

What circumstances trigger the need? When does the job arise? Context is critical — the same person may have different jobs in different situations.

The job arises when teams are distributed across offices or time zones, when projects have multiple stakeholders, and when email threads become unmanageable. The trigger is usually a specific moment: losing an important decision in an email thread, missing a message, or realising that half the team didn't see a critical update.

2. The Struggling Moment

The specific moment when the customer realises their current solution is no longer good enough. This is the seed of all demand — no struggle, no switch.

The moment when you're searching your inbox for 20 minutes trying to find that one decision about the product spec that was buried in a 47-message email thread with 12 people CC'd. Or when you realise the London team made a decision on Monday that the New York team didn't learn about until Thursday — and they've been building the wrong thing for three days.

How are they solving the problem today? Include doing nothing, spreadsheets, manual processes, hiring someone, or using a competitor. These are your real competitors.

Email (primary), occasional Skype/Google Hangout calls, Basecamp or HipChat for some teams, shared Google Docs for notes, text messages for urgent items, walking to someone's desk. Many teams use 4-5 tools simultaneously, none of which are integrated. Some teams have given up and just have more meetings.

3. Forces of Progress

Four forces determine whether a customer will switch. Push and pull drive change; anxiety and habit resist it.

What's wrong with their current way of doing things? What's the pain that makes them start looking for alternatives?

Email is drowning people. Average knowledge worker gets 120+ emails/day. Important decisions are buried. CC culture means noise overwhelms signal. No searchability across conversations. File sharing through email attachments creates version control nightmares. Remote workers feel out of the loop.

What does the better future look like? What's the promised land they imagine when they think about switching?

The promise of a single place where all team communication lives. Searchable history. Channels that organise by topic, not by who happened to be CC'd. Integrations with tools teams already use (GitHub, Trello, Google Drive). The feeling of being connected to your team in real time without the formality of email.

What worries them about switching? Will it work? Is it too complex? What if it's worse? Will my team adopt it?

Will my team actually adopt it? (Previous tools failed because only half the team used them.) Is it secure enough for sensitive business conversations? Will it become another notification firehose? Will management see it as 'just chatting' and not real work? How do we migrate our existing communication history?

What keeps them stuck? Familiarity, sunk cost, relationships with existing vendor, team resistance, 'it's good enough'.

Everyone knows how to use email. Email is universal — works with external partners, clients, anyone. Existing workflows are built around email (approvals, forwarding, BCC). People have years of searchable email history. Outlook/Gmail calendar integration. 'Email works fine' — the status quo bias is enormous.

4. Force Strength Assessment

Rate each force from 1 (weak) to 10 (very strong) to understand the balance.

How strong is the frustration with the current solution?

8

How attractive is the new solution / better future?

9

How strong is the fear of switching?

6

How strong is the inertia / comfort with the current way?

7

Calculated as (Push + Pull) - (Anxiety + Habit). Positive = likely to switch. Higher is better.

—

5. Desired Outcomes

What measurable results does the customer want? Speed, accuracy, cost savings, fewer steps. These should be observable and quantifiable where possible.

Find any past conversation or file in under 30 seconds. Reduce internal email by 60-80%. Get new team members up to speed by reading channel history. Make decisions visible to everyone who needs to know. Integrate with existing tools (don't replace everything, connect everything).

How does the customer want to feel? Confident, in control, relieved, proud, professional. Emotional jobs are often more powerful than functional ones.

Feel connected to the team even when working remotely. Feel in control of information flow (opt in to channels vs. being CC'd). Feel like communication is lightweight, not a chore. Feel confident that nothing important is falling through the cracks.

How does the customer want to be perceived by others? What does using your solution signal to their boss, team, peers, or customers?

Be seen as a modern, forward-thinking team. Signal that you value transparency and open communication. Demonstrate to leadership that remote work can be as effective as co-located work. Be the person who introduced a tool the whole company loves.

6. Strategic Implications

Based on the job, what should your positioning lead with? Which outcome is most compelling? How should you frame the category?

Lead with the job, not the features. Don't say 'team chat app' — say 'where work happens.' Position against email (the real competitor), not against other chat tools. Frame the category as 'workplace communication' not 'messaging.' The tagline 'Be less busy' speaks directly to the struggling moment.

What language does the customer use to describe their struggle? Use their words in your messaging. What anxiety must you address head-on?

Use the customer's language: 'buried in email,' 'lost in threads,' 'out of the loop.' Address the adoption anxiety head-on: show social proof of team-wide adoption ('Slack grew to 8,000 users at our company in 2 weeks'). Reduce switching cost: emphasise how easy it is to start ('invite your team and start a channel — it takes 2 minutes').

What features directly serve the core job? What features are irrelevant to the job and should be deprioritised? What's the onboarding experience that reduces anxiety?

Make search world-class (directly serves the core job). Make onboarding frictionless to reduce anxiety (Slackbot tutorial). Build integrations aggressively to reduce the need to switch between tools. Design notification controls carefully to avoid becoming another firehose (the anxiety they had about switching). Channel-based architecture mirrors how teams actually work, not how email works.
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