Nobody wants a drill. They want a hole in the wall. And often, they don’t even want the hole — they want the shelf that goes on the wall. And beyond the shelf, they want the feeling of having an organized home.
This is the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) framework in one sentence: people don’t buy products; they hire products to make progress in their lives. The “job” is the progress they’re trying to make. Your product is just the thing they hire to do it.
I came to JTBD late. For years, I built products based on features — what the product does. Then I started building based on problems — what frustrates the customer. Both approaches are better than nothing, but neither captures the full picture. JTBD goes further: it asks what progress the customer is trying to make, regardless of the category your product sits in.
This distinction changes how you validate, how you build, how you market, and who you compete with. Let me show you what I mean.
Understanding the Job
A “job” in JTBD terminology has three dimensions:
Functional: What the customer needs to accomplish practically. “I need to get my team aligned on project priorities.”
Emotional: How the customer wants to feel. “I want to feel confident that nothing is falling through the cracks.”
Social: How the customer wants to be perceived. “I want my team to see me as organized and reliable.”
Most products address only the functional dimension. They focus on what the tool does. But purchasing decisions are driven by all three, and often the emotional and social dimensions matter more than the functional one.
When I was building products at Vulpine, I noticed that customers would choose an inferior product over a superior one because the inferior product made them feel a certain way. A founder might choose a simpler, more elegant project management tool over a feature-rich one because the simpler tool makes them feel sophisticated rather than overwhelmed. The “job” isn’t managing projects — it’s feeling in control of a chaotic situation while looking like you have it together.
This reframing changes your competitive landscape entirely. You’re not competing with other project management tools. You’re competing with anything that helps someone feel in control: a personal assistant, a productivity coach, a simpler business model, or even delegating the work to someone else.
Understanding the full job — functional, emotional, and social — is what separates products people use from products people love.
The JTBD Interview: Uncovering What People Actually Hire
Standard customer interviews ask about problems. JTBD interviews ask about switching behavior — specifically, the moment someone decided to change how they do something.
Here’s the interview framework I use:
Part 1: The timeline.
- “When did you first start looking for a new way to handle [this area]?”
- “What was happening in your life or work that triggered the search?”
- “What solutions did you consider? What did you try first?”
- “When did you actually make the switch? What pushed you over the edge?”
Part 2: The push and pull.
- “What was frustrating about the old way?” (Push — what drove them away from the status quo)
- “What attracted you to the new way?” (Pull — what drew them toward the new solution)
- “What almost stopped you from switching?” (Anxiety about the new solution)
- “What did you have to give up to switch?” (Habit of the existing behavior)
Part 3: The outcome.
- “How has your situation changed since switching?”
- “What’s still not quite right?”
- “Would you go back to the old way? Why or why not?”
This interview structure reveals the forces at play in every purchasing decision. There are four forces:
- Push of the current situation (frustration with what they have)
- Pull of the new solution (attraction to what’s possible)
- Anxiety about the new solution (fear that it won’t work)
- Habit of the existing behavior (comfort with the status quo)
For someone to hire your product, the combined strength of push + pull must exceed the combined strength of anxiety + habit. Your marketing addresses push and pull. Your onboarding addresses anxiety and habit.
Most founders focus exclusively on pull (“look how great our product is!”) and ignore the other three forces. The result is beautiful marketing that doesn’t convert because it doesn’t address why someone would leave what they’re currently doing.
Applying JTBD to Validation
JTBD changes how you validate in three specific ways.
Change 1: You validate the job, not the product.
Instead of asking “would you buy this product?” you ask “are you currently trying to make this kind of progress?” If people are actively seeking progress in the area your product addresses, the job exists. The specific product form can be figured out later.
This is a more resilient form of validation because jobs are stable even when products aren’t. The job of “get my team aligned” has existed for decades and will exist for decades more, even as the products that serve it change. Validating the job means you’ve confirmed a permanent market, not just interest in a temporary feature set.
Change 2: Your competitors are different than you think.
A coffee shop’s competitors aren’t just other coffee shops. They’re anything people hire to do the “job” that coffee does. If the job is “give me a productive place to work outside my home,” competitors include co-working spaces, libraries, and hotel lobbies. If the job is “give me a reason to leave the house,” competitors include parks, gyms, and shopping centers.
When I work with startups on competitive analysis, I use JTBD to map the full competitive landscape. The result is always surprising — the real competition comes from places the founder never considered.
Change 3: You design for switching, not just satisfaction.
Most products are designed to be good. JTBD products are designed to overcome the specific barriers that prevent switching.
If your JTBD interviews reveal that the biggest barrier to switching is “I’ve already set up my current system and don’t want to migrate all my data,” then your product’s most important feature isn’t anything functional — it’s an import tool. If the biggest barrier is “I tried something new last year and it was a waste of time,” your most important marketing asset is a free trial with instant value.
Designing for switching means designing for the real decision the customer faces: not “is this product good?” but “is this product good enough to justify the cost of switching from what I’m already doing?”
JTBD for Pricing
This is where JTBD gets really practical. Most founders price based on cost (what it costs to deliver), competitors (what others charge), or gut feeling (what seems fair). JTBD prices based on the value of the progress.
If the job is “feel confident that my business finances are in order,” and the current way of achieving that confidence is paying an accountant €200/month, your product doesn’t need to be priced against other finance tools. It needs to be priced against the €200/month the customer is currently spending on the same job.
This means a €49/month finance tool isn’t expensive — it’s saving the customer €151/month while delivering the same job. The flinch test works here: present your price in the context of what the customer currently spends on the job, and their reaction tells you everything.
JTBD pricing often reveals that founders are dramatically underpricing. When you price against product competitors, you anchor to their prices. When you price against the job, you anchor to the full value of the progress the customer is making. These are often very different numbers.
Consider a startup selling a customer onboarding tool for €19/month because similar tools cost €15-25/month. When you analyze the job (reduce churn in the first 30 days of customer relationships), you might find that customers are losing hundreds per month to early churn. Priced against the job, €99/month is still a bargain. I have seen founders raise prices dramatically after this reframing, with conversions barely changing.Writing Job Stories Instead of User Stories
In product development, I’ve replaced user stories with job stories. The format change is small but the shift in thinking is significant.
User story format: “As a [type of user], I want to [action], so that [benefit].” Example: “As a freelancer, I want to track my expenses, so that I know where my money goes.”
Job story format: “When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [expected outcome].” Example: “When I’m preparing my quarterly tax filing, I want to see all my deductible expenses in one place, so I can file quickly without worrying I missed something.”
The job story is richer because it specifies the situation (when), the motivation (want), and the outcome (so I can). The user story tells you what to build. The job story tells you why someone would use it and what “done” looks like from their perspective.
I use job stories for everything — product features, marketing messages, even sales page structure. “When you’re preparing your tax filing and dreading the expense search” is a more compelling opening than “Track your expenses with our easy-to-use tool.”
Common JTBD Mistakes
The framework is powerful but easy to misapply. Here are the mistakes I see most often.
Mistake 1: Making the job too broad. “Get my life organized” is not a job — it’s a wish. Jobs are specific situations with specific motivations. “When I have multiple client projects with overlapping deadlines, I need to see what’s due this week so I don’t miss anything” — that’s a job.
Mistake 2: Confusing jobs with tasks. “Send an invoice” is a task. “Get paid on time without chasing clients” is a job. Tasks are the mechanical steps. Jobs are the progress the person is trying to make. Build for jobs, not tasks.
Mistake 3: Assuming the job is the same for everyone. Different customer segments hire the same product for different jobs. A solopreneur hires a project management tool to “keep track of everything in my head.” A team lead hires the same tool to “make sure everyone knows what they’re responsible for.” Same tool, different jobs, different marketing, different onboarding.
Mistake 4: Ignoring the emotional and social dimensions. If you only address the functional job, you’ll build a product that works but that nobody loves. The emotional and social layers are what create loyalty, word of mouth, and willingness to pay premium prices.
Key Takeaways
- People hire products to make progress. The “job” is the progress, not the product. Understanding the job changes validation, competitive analysis, pricing, and product design.
- Every purchasing decision has four forces: push of the current situation, pull of the new solution, anxiety about switching, and habit of the status quo. Address all four.
- Price against the job, not against competitors. The value of progress is often much higher than the price of competing products, which means you’re probably underpricing.
- Use job stories instead of user stories. “When [situation], I want to [motivation], so I can [outcome]” produces better product thinking than “As a user, I want to…”
- The emotional and social dimensions of the job matter as much as the functional one. Products that address all three create loyalty. Products that address only the functional dimension create utility.
