Market Research Fundamentals

This lesson explains why market and customer research—not assumptions—must shape what you build and how you grow. You’ll replace “everyone is our user” with a precise view of who faces your problem, will pay to solve it, and is motivated now. Using the Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) lens, you define the functional and emotional “job” customers hire products to do, then identify ideal segments with high urgency and agency but low ability to solve it alone. You’ll validate demand pre-launch and refine fit post-launch by combining interviews, surveys, field observation, existing customer data, and competitor analysis—not to copy features, but to understand which jobs alternatives actually complete.

You’ll turn insights into action with three outputs: rich personas, a customer/market profile summarizing the job, constraints, and alternatives, and a customer journey map across exploring, considering, deciding, consuming, and loyalty. To optimize the funnel, you’ll apply the Psych Framework: raise users’ emotional energy with clear messaging, social proof, and smooth UX before asking for effort, while removing friction that drains it. The throughline is simple: focus on the customer’s job and triggers, not your features. When you align product, messaging, and experience to the job that matters most, you convert more of the right people and retain them longer.