Your customers don’t want your product
People don’t buy products; they hire them to do a job. Use the JTBD framework to find out why they actually buy.
Clay Christensen taught us: “People don’t buy a drill; they hire it to make a hole.”
You are obsessed with your features. Your customer doesn’t care about your features. They are “hiring” you to make progress in their life.
If you don’t know the “Job,” you will be disrupted by a competitor who looks nothing like you but solves the problem better.
The Prompt
Act as a Product Strategist (JTBD framework).
We sell: [Product/Service].
Our customer is: [Target Persona].
1. The Job: What is the functional, emotional, and social "Job" they are hiring us to do? (e.g., A milkshake isn't a drink; it's a boring commute killer).
2. The Switch: What is the "Push" (current pain) and the "Pull" (new solution) that causes them to switch to us?
3. The Threat: Who are we actually competing with? (e.g., Netflix competes with sleep/wine, not just Disney+).
The Executive Upgrade
Companies kill themselves adding features to beat a competitor, only to realise the customer didn’t care.
When you understand the “Job,” you realise that removing features is often the best innovation.
Example: Zoom won by removing the need to create an account (reducing friction), not by adding 3D avatars.
Here are the two Governance Protocols to find the hidden growth.
Follow-Up Prompt 1: The “Non-Consumer” Hunt
(Use this to find Blue Ocean growth)
Act as a Market Researcher.
Look at the "Job" we defined above.
Identify a group of people who have this problem but are currently "Non-Consumers" (they buy nothing or hack together a manual solution) because the current market solutions are too expensive or complex.
1. Who are they?
2. What is the specific barrier stopping them? (Skill, Wealth, Access, Time).
3. How could we strip our product down to the bone to serve them profitably?
Follow-Up Prompt 2: The “Firing” Autopsy
(Use this to analyse Churn)
Act as a Customer Psychologist.
We just lost a high-value customer to [Competitor/Alternative].
They "fired" our product.
Analyse why.
1. Did we fail to do the Job?
2. Or did the Job change? (e.g., They grew up, and we didn't grow with them).
3. Script an interview question I can ask a churned customer to uncover the *moment* they decided to fire us (not the moment they cancelled, but the moment the emotional decision was made).