Market position & differentiation · strategy atlas
Jobs-to-be-done
what it means
Understanding what 'job' a customer is really hiring a product to do in their life, rather than describing customers only by demographics — because two very different products can compete for the same job.
a real example
A famous retail analysis found that milkshakes sold in the morning were competing with breakfast bars and bananas, not other milkshakes, because commuters were 'hiring' them to make a boring commute interesting and stay full until lunch.
when to use it
Whenever a product's real competition doesn't look like other products in its own category — the job framing reveals who you're actually up against.
when it backfires
Treating every stated 'job' as equally important without prioritising the job with the biggest, most underserved population dilutes the product into solving many jobs poorly.
put it into practice