Jobs Theory Blog

Jay Haynes, founder and CEO of thrv, recently sat down and spoke with Phil Terry, founder of Collaborative Gain as part of a product talk. The talk was focused on the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework

Welcome to our series, "How Would You Beat?" In each article, we pick a company and talk about how you could use jobs-to-be-done innovation methods to beat that company's product. We discuss..

Welcome to our series, "How Would You Beat?" In each article, we pick a company and talk about how you could use jobs-to-be-done innovation methods to beat that company's product. We discuss..

In each of our "How Would You Beat?" articles, we pick a company and talk about how you could use jobs-to-be-done innovation methods to beat that company's product. We discuss innovation theory and..

Welcome to our series, "How Would You Beat?" In each article, we pick a company and talk about how you could use jobs-to-be-done innovation methods to beat that company's product. We'll discuss..

Today, people are asking about jobs-to-be-done because it's a trendy topic. Specifically, they're asking, "What is the job?" If you're on a product, marketing or sales team at a company,..

How do you create a good jobs-to-be-done statement? This is critical because you're using language to define what your customers want and what your market is. We know that people hire products to..

According to Jobs Theory, your customers are not buying your products, they are hiring them to get a job done. A job-to-be-done is a goal your customers are trying to achieve independent of any..

Today we're going to talk about adopting a product roadmap framework. This is for teams who are trying to create product roadmaps. If you've ever tried to create one, it can be extremely difficult...

Product Management frameworks are exciting to learn and frustrating to implement. As a product manager myself and a framework teacher, I totally understand the appeal. Being a product manager is a..

By definition, most product, marketing and sales people don’t work at market leading companies. In order to build a business, we need to get people to switch from using some other product or get..

What is targeted messaging? Why is it important to your product, marketing and sales teams? How do you use jobs-to-be-done to deliver effective targeted messages?

Companies frequently make the..

How can you use Jobs-to-be-Done innovation methods to beat your competitors? In this next installment of “How Would You Beat?” we explain how to define markets using JTBD, which is the critical..

As the head of sales, you’ve likely experimented with numerous frameworks for your sales team. There’s also a good chance that you’ve grown tired of the redundant message across all of them:

• ..

Let's just say it: working with a terrible team sucks. It really sucks. Whether it’s your leadership team, your colleagues or your peers, working with a team that sucks, absolutely sucks. It’s even..

Jobs-to-be-done is more than just a theory. It also provides a framework for complete product innovation that makes your customer the focal point of your product strategy. The jobs-to-be-done..

Welcome to the next lesson in our online JTBD course. You will learn how to size a market using jobs-to-be-done innovation methods. In this video, we will explain how to avoid lethal market sizing..

Welcome to the next lesson in our online JTBD course. You will learn how to define your market using jobs-to-be-done innovation methods. In this video, we will explain what a market is, types of..

Welcome to the next lesson in our online JTBD course. You will learn how to identify the critical customer in your market. In this video, we will show you how Nest succeeded by targeting a different..

We are excited to launch our #JTBD YouTube channel today to help your product team use Jobs-to-be-Done innovation methods. Our first 15-minute video covers all the basics of JTBD and shows how you..

As recently as three months ago, WeWork was a high-flying startup headed for an IPO with a $47 billion market cap. Since then, they have suspended IPO plans..

Facebook has been in the news for allowing a Donald Trump ad that makes untrue statements: essentially lies. They have been defending this by claiming (i) protection of “free speech” and (ii)..

“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later that debt is paid.”

-- Valery Legasov, chief of the commission investigating the Chernobyl disaster, in HBO’s Chernobyl

Here’s a..

Product positioning strategies are key to fostering a unique connection with your customers. When a product or brand is positioned well, it’s easy to point out. There’s no confusion around what the..

Issue: Disagreement on Customer Needs

Your goal as a company is to build, market and sell products that satisfy customer needs better than competitors. Although it may sound oversimplified,..

Issue: Poorly Defined Product Development Strategy

Your product strategy is everything. It will define your success or failure as a product team. So what is a product strategy? Does your product..

Issue:  Miscalculating Your Real Competitors

Creating equity value in your company comes down to one thing - your ability to satisfy customer needs better than competitors in your market. This is..

The Issue: Endless Roadmap Meetings and Too Many Product Ideas

Brainstorming can feel like the wild wild west of product planning. The unpredictability of idea generation sessions can derail..

Issue: Incorrectly Sizing a Market Leads to Product Failure

Market sizing is used to determine which markets are worth investing in. If a product wins its market, it still may not be worth building..

The goal of market segmentation is to identify a group of customers (a segment) who are different from the whole population. It is a tactic for product, marketing, and sales teams to relate to..

Coming up with the right set of features for an MVP is a pressure-filled task. If your MVP doesn't succeed, convincing anyone to continue investing in your product (or company) is an uphill battle...

In Jobs Theory, there are three types of jobs-to-be-done your customer is trying to get done - functional, emotional and consumption. Knowing the difference between these three jobs is critical in..

How do you define your market? Is it by the customers you serve? The product you’re building? Or perhaps the category everyone else uses to describe your product?

When it comes to defining a..

Digital transformation has executives salivating at the thought of being innovative, however it’s clear many of them have misunderstood what it requires to execute successfully. Last month, Harvard..

What do you do when you’ve spent the lifetime of your business focusing..

You can use Jobs-to-be-Done to learn from your customers and measure a new product idea before building anything.

The Build-Measure-Learn Feedback Loop is a core tenet of the lean startup..

Over a year after the publication of Clayton Christensen’s book about Jobs Theory, Competing Against Luck, Jobs-to-be-Done is a much more common topic at companies of all sizes and sectors. As..

If you're looking for ways to improve your Net Promoter Score, Jobs-to-be-Done can help you determine what to do to transform your detractors to promoters.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is an..

If you haven't already, take a look at the Cicret Bracelet video. In just over two years, it has over 25 million views on YouTube. It's a water-resistant bracelet that projects your smartphone's..

In 2011, IBM found that drivers in cities around the world spend an average of 20 minutes finding a parking spot. Such studies highlight the need for more efficient parking.

Entrepreneurs and..

Processes and frameworks can get a bad rap. Many companies are proud of having a light-weight or loose process, considering themselves "agile," "fluid," and "intuitive." They may even say their work..

thrv, LLC (thrv.com), the first and only jobs-to-be-done product management software, today announced that Melissa Burghardt has joined the company as a Growth Partner. For thrv's customers, Melissa..

Many people think that only entrepreneurs need to pitch investors and raise money, but the same process is happening every day in big companies. Boards, executives, and stakeholders are trying to..

The latest version Apple's MacBook Pro hit the markets in late 2016, advertised as faster and more powerful than ever. One of its main selling points--the TouchBar--is said to make the device more..

It's the heart of Q4. Product Managers across the land are getting requests for next year's road map as part of a company-wide "annual planning process."

Some of you have talked your way out of an..

Jay Haynes, thrv's CEO, gave a talk on Building High-Growth Products with Jobs-to-be-Done at Product Tank SF, the San Francisco Meetup for Mind The Product. Below is the video of the talk.

The goal..

This is Part 2 of two-part series explaining thrv's process for executing Jobs Theory. Part 1 is about customer research you can do to define the right question that will drive your product..

This is a two part series explaining thrv's process for executing Jobs Theory. Part 1: How to Ask the Right Question is about defining the job of your customer, identifying unmet needs, and..

In 2010, Google Ventures design partner Jake Knapp developed a process that would help product teams go from abstract idea to a testable prototype in five days flat, now known as the Google Ventures..

There has been so much written about Product Management recently that NomNom Insights and DataStories did a study of Product Management Content on Medium. We've been doing our best to keep up and..

Horace Dediu argues that in the mobile phone market, profit share is the key to creating shareholder value, not market share. This makes sense. You don't want to just sell more product than your..

Executive Summary:

With Pokemon Go's explosive growth, product teams around the world are asking, "What are we going to do with Augmented Reality?" Jobs-to-be-Done provides a customer-centric..

thrv works with product teams to help them satisfy their customers' needs. Critical to this effort is alignment among the teams we work with. They need to be aligned around who..

I’ve spoken to quite a few product managers whose teams and companies have recently adopted the Agile Software Development framework. When we discuss Jobs-to-be-Done and thrv, they are often..

Snapchat launched in September of 2011. Just 2 years later, Facebook attempted to acquire them for $3 billion. A year into their stratospheric growth, mainstream media assumed it was a sexting app...

This week features the third and final installment of our JTBD Product Management: An Education Market Example series. If you haven't read them already, check out Part 1, Part 2, and our Cheat Sheet...

Today, we continue our exploration of how Jobs-to-be-Done helps product managers think differently, drive innovation, and develop new products and features based on the needs of the customer. In our..

Last week we posted our Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) cheat sheet. It's a handy guide to help you understand how JTBD differs from traditional thinking, and how you can use the JTBD framework to create..

This is the introduction to a series about how Jobs-to-be-Done (JTBD) can change your product development mindset. Part 1 explains the first five rows of our Jobs-to-be-Done worksheet using the..

It's one of the toughest moments for any company. You've spent time and money, pushed a great team to their limits, and now you are ready to launch a product into the world. You should be proud,..

Welcome to thrv! We're excited you're here and we can't wait to tell you more about our company, our people and our software. Why are we so excited? Because we believe the discipline of Product..