JTBD Case Studies

Our biggest competitor, Amazon, started copying a lot of the things we were doing. The team was excited that rather than being a follower we were now in a place where we were leading.

When thrv ran a Jobs-to-be-Done Sprint with the Target Registry team, their revenue was declining, they were stuck in a game of feature catch-up with Amazon and losing market share to them. In this Case Study, Matt Bjornson, Director of Product for Target Registry from 2016 to 2020, explains how his team worked with thrv to use Jobs-to-be-Done to reverse their revenue decline, win share from Amazon, and develop features that Amazon tried to copy.

In the video, Matt provides a lot of detail on how JTBD led to different ways of thinking, different processes, and breakthrough ideas. His results seem magical, but his story is very real. Matt can speak for himself:

• "We were really successful and jobs was such a pivotal aspect. We started thinking completely differently. We turned the top line revenue growth around completely. 12-18 months after we were deep into Jobs we were growing 25+% top line per year. We saw a 20% increase in NPS. The teams were focused; they were aligned.”

2020 was extremely challenging in our market and yet we were able to grow our business. New products contributed to 30% of our new bookings.

Over the course of 2020, AutoQuotes implemented Jobs-to-be-Done with thrv. The training and research led to a new product roadmapping decision-making process that aligned the operating team, the board, and the employees with their customers' problems and generated revenue growth from new products.

In this video, you'll hear:

• Jim Contardi, CEO of AutoQuotes, explain how Jobs-to-be-Done helped them look at their market in a whole new way, identify opportunities they didn't see before, and make it clear where they should spend their product development budget.
• Matt Kuo, AQ's Head of Product, talk about the benefits of having a common language for the customers' goals and problems. 
• Mark Haidet, Chairman of the AQ Board (and Luminate Capital Operating Partner), describe Jobs-to-be-Done as a framework for making capital allocation decisions and mitigating investment risk.
• Dave Ulrich, AQ Board Member (and Luminate Capital Partner), discuss how the Job Steps help those who don't talk to customers every day understand how the roadmap will drive customer value.

AutoQuotes is an online foodservice equipment marketplace. It connects foodservice operators (restauranteurs, cafeteria managers, operations executives of chains) with dealers and manufacturers who sell the appliances, supplies, and equipment needed to serve food. 

When AQ began its engagement with thrv, it had deep market penetration and needed to find new ways to provide customer value and grow revenue. It had an ambitious roadmap, and in the words of Jim Contardi, "It seemed good, but how did we know it was worth investing a half a million dollars?"

thrv kicked off the engagement with a Product Strategy Workshop during which we identified the key customers in the market, distinguished between Job Beneficiaries and Job Executors, defined the customers' jobs-to-be-done, and assessed the competitor landscape across the job steps.

The workshop led to qualitative interviews and a quantitative survey to validate the customer insights. Throughout the research, thrv and the AQ leadership team got buy-in on the insights from the Luminate Capital board. This led to the team and the board being fully aligned on the market opportunity we identified. 

With the team focused on clearly articulated customers, jobs, and unmet needs supported by data, they were able to generate better product ideas, filter through the noise of off-strategy suggestions, and make faster and more accurate roadmap, M&A, and go-to-market decisions.

And of course, Jim Contardi was able to answer his own question about how to invest a half million dollars in product development, "Once we did this work, it became obvious."