Jobs-To-Be-Done (JTBD) Framework

There are many ways to structure your customer research, but we recommend using the jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework.

According to this framework:

• Customers are users who hire products to complete a specific job.
• Products help complete a user’s job.
• If the product does the job well, users will hire that product again. Otherwise, they’ll fire it and hire a different product.

Here's a overview from one of the creators of the framework:

Note: Yes, it is weird to say, "I hired a milkshake."

According to the JTBD framework, companies should ask, “What job are people hiring my product for?” This is a customer-centered approach, where companies design products around meeting users’ real-life needs, aka jobs.

Companies oftentimes use their competitors to guide product development. They ask, “What would make my product better than the competitors?”

Example: local hotels try to outdo one another by providing better amenities and customer service.

But, consider Airbnb. Part of its success comes not from offering better amenities or customer service than hotels, but by excelling at a job hotels don’t complete: providing stays with more local personality.

Similarly, other major companies design their products around jobs specific to their target users’ needs—not in comparison to their competition. Here are a few examples:

• Robinhood: Make investing easy and accessible for retail consumers
• Zoom: Virtually connect remote teams
• Warby Parker: Make stylish designer eyewear affordable

The JTBD framework further helps you understand the job so you can build a better product.

For pre-launch companies, that means using this framework to validate market demand.

• What problems do people encounter and hire products for?
• What job needs to be done for which no good products exist? (DIY solutions by users are often a sign of unfulfilled jobs.)

For post-launch companies, the JTBD framework helps pinpoint where and how your product provides the most value.

• What exactly is the job your product should be hired for?
• And how can you optimize your product for that job?

JTBD and your ideal audience

The JTBD framework defines your ideal audience as more than a list of demographics. Indeed, categorizing users based on certain traits can be helpful, but it also limits your understanding of who benefits from your product.

So, who is your ideal audience? These are the users who:

• Face the problem your product addresses
• Would pay to solve this problem
• Are unhappy with a competitor
• Have an urgent need to switch to you

Here’s a framework for identifying your ideal audience based on how users view your problem:

1. Urgency: How quickly do they want to solve it?
2. Agency: How willing are they to solve it?
3. Ability: How able are they to solve it?

Your ideal users have high urgency and agency and low ability. They can’t solve their problem on their own and are motivated to solve it quickly.

Take Shopify for example.

All kinds of businesses use Shopify—there isn’t just one demographic or industry it’s useful for. But its ideal audience is mostly made up of small businesses and entrepreneurs who don’t have tech backgrounds and want to easily sell products online. These users:

• Want to begin selling goods online ASAP (high urgency)
• Have the means and desire to invest in an all-in-one selling platform (high agency)
• Don’t know how to set up an ecommerce business on their own (low ability)

Compare that to less-than-ideal customers, who include:

• People who only want to sell products locally (low urgency)
• Casual hobbyists and craftspeople—to them, selling things is more for fun (low agency)
• Experienced programmers who can create an online shop from scratch (high ability)

Job requirements

Using the JTBD framework, the product revolves around the job, which is a task with both functional and emotional job aspects:

• Functional: The practical physical requirements that get a job done
• Emotional: The underlying desires and emotions required for jobs to feel complete

You must define both to understand the job that needs to be done.

Consider DoorDash.

• Functional: Quickly order food delivery online.
• Emotional: Convenience and security, thanks to the app and contactless payments. Many people don't want to call a restaurant or interact with a delivery driver because they're in pajamas, sick, or deep into a weed gummy.

Your product must fulfill both functional and emotional jobs that need to be done—or customers are less likely to hire it.

A real-life example of the JTBD framework

Twine creates software to help companies stay organized. In 2019, it seemed to be doing well—it had happy customers and consistent growth.

But despite Twine’s “success,” its team struggled to focus because customers used the product in many different ways. Deciding which features were most compelling and which new product features should be prioritized was difficult.

Twine’s team used the JTBD framework to determine what exactly to focus on. They:

• Interviewed their most active users
• Studied sales call notes and CRM data
• Analyzed customer support tickets and app usage

This helped Twine’s team find where customers found the most value in their product. It also uncovered how customers viewed their own needs and the language they used to describe the product—which Twine quickly made changes to accommodate in its product and marketing.

Today, Twine focuses on the most important jobs its users want to hire for: centralizing team info, integrating tools, and connecting different people.