Ash Maurya · Blog

Good customer / problem discovery is key to achieving problem/solution fit.

As product development has become easier, the battle for attention has become harder.

Inspired by Kurt Vonnegut’s lecture on “the simple shapes of stories,” I’ve previously riffed on The Simple Shapes of Startups.

Time flies.

Were you in the middle of launching a new product or startup when the pandemic hit?

Getting to product/market fit (aka the inflection point in the hockey-stick curve when a product's traction starts rapidly growing) is one of the most significant milestones for a startup.

While you need milestones to be well-defined, how one actually achieves them may not necessarily be well-defined or linear, but iterative…

Hopefully, the takeaway from this piece is getting others to think of goals the way you are advocating.

Successful businesses are more alike than unalike.

Alex Taylor — There’s a whole course on this (BOOTSTART) at https://leanstack.com/entrepreneur that dives into how to run interviews, capture insights, and position a product for switch.

Simplicity is deliberate here. 55 models, while exhaustive, can lead to analysis paralysis.

So even ERP is dependent on the same dynamics of users creating value and buyers/decision makers realizing that value over time.

Agreed.

I instead, recommend making a case for customer/problem fit first using a Lean(er) Canvas backed with some evidence.

First, this article was written for entrepreneurs swinging for the fences, not consultants.

Thanks for sharing… Free days are key and yes, there’s, unfortunately, a lot of stigma around them.

Time is our scarcest resource.

The traditional startup funnel is broken.

Link fixed.

Time flies.

If you’re a long time reader of this blog, chances are high you’ve read my first book: Running Lean.

Customer segmentation is always challenging… With larger orgs that have existing customers, I initially suggest segmenting your customers by metrics (e.g. best customers) and or specific jobs-to-be-done.

Are you talking about customer/user targets within the same business model or across multiple business models?

You got it — a jtbd is an instance of a class that’s an existing pattern that continually plays out statistically in the same way…until something better comes along.

My point with those examples is that given a similar set of circumstances, different innovators can choose to focus on different contexts…

We met several years ago and started a collaboration where he admitted that the current jtbd thinking was too complex and he was seeking…

Practice Trumps Theory does not imply theory is irrelevant.

There is a lot to unpack here, but I’ll start with the comment about only focusing on first purchases — and not repurchases.

I’ll ask a different question on naming — because naming matters:

I’m a “Practice Trumps Theory” type of person.

Sorry… “JTBD as a job someone is trying to do” is not a definition.

We sometimes call the latent jtbd the non-consumption market because it seems like people aren’t taking action…when in fact, they aren’t…

An instantiation is not fuzzy but a discrete event.

I’m working on a next book ;)

Bob Moesta describes acquisition as the big hire and retention as the little hire.

John Morris Ah… that’s because we already have a system view of the customer journey — the customer factory blueprint.

but yes that’s a crucial point.

This post was all about definitions.

You’ve probably run into the jobs-to-be-done framework/theory.

http://innovatorsgift.com

In a recent post, I shared a reference implementation of an innovation funnel built on the Continuous Innovation Framework and cautioned…

Tristan Kromer — I almost called our conversation out in this other post: What is the Right Fill Order for a Lean Canvas?

The Model-Prioritize-Test pattern is rooted in the Scientific method.

The three circles are definitely generic and broad which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

In order to achieve breakthrough innovation, you shouldn’t be limiting yourself to any one of these frameworks, but rather using all…

Be careful though, that simply listing a job-to-be-done is subject to the same bias as listing problems.

Here, I tend to disagree.

Sudhir Nain Have you checked out the Customer Forces Canvas?

I started a new project (http://innovatorsgift.com) to reconcile a lot of the existing and often conflicting approaches to JTBD.

It is feasible provided your initial problems are grounded in some learning e.g. anecdotal observation.