Every business responds to some need. If no one needs what you offer then you are out of work. If someone wants or needs your offer, it means that you are valuable to that person – you make their lives easier or better.
When you go to start a business, the first item on the agenda is to find something that people don’t have enough of and offer it to them. We can say that business is a system of creating value and delivering that value, for a fee. Thanks to fees, or money, you can invest in the business and create more value for others. Without your product/service being valid to the customers, you will not succeed or it is not sustainable and cannot grow. Your business model is that calculation – the way you ensure the entry of revenue as well as the internal creation of value (which you then sell). An entrepreneurial opportunity is when we find other people’s obstacles or challenges and go to solve them. Find out what people need (or want) and offer it to them. This is how we create value. If there are no users who need or value our offer, then we have no business – then we have a hobby.
If you accept that your opportunity is in other people because they are your users and / or customers, then we accept the views from the user’s perspective. To achieve this, we use the JTBD [Job-To-Be-Done] business tool. All your users have a problem or need, which you address. That need or problem of theirs is just JTBD!
People who buy a camera want to be photographers. JTBD is to allow the user to become a photographer (or better photographer), and is not a zoom x12 function on the lens. People who buy whitening toothpaste want a nice smile, so you sell them that they will have a nice smile, that is, you do not sell them protection against caries. So if you produce cleaning products in your factory, you will be selling a clean and fragrant smell in the store. If, on the other hand, you produce cosmetics in the factory, then you will sell hope (ie the possibility of reducing the visibility of aging, the possibility of attracting a partner by appearance, etc..
With this tool, we immediately see that there is a difference between what customers buy and why customers buy!
What is extremely important for our business is to find out why they are buying and/or using our product/service. Each person of the Jobs to be done needs the following two fulfilments:
- Functional needs (functionality of your product / service)
- Emotional needs
- Personal dimension of emotional needs (e.g. self-confidence)
- Social dimension of emotional needs (e.g. status).
Functionally, we buy shoes that we are not barefoot, but emotionally we buy shoes that fit our clothes and that are beautiful to us. Functionally, it is important to us that our shoes are comfortable, maybe not leaking.
In talking to friends, it may be important for us to get a compliment for the new shoes. This one pair of shoes fulfils many of our needs and desires, i.e. it has a lot of work to do. And regardless of the fact that we are not particularly aware of any of this while buying these shoes, our brain will still check whether the needs are met, or whether the job is done. If not, in time that pair of shoes will come in handy. And we certainly won’t take it out of the closet.
Want to learn something more? Have a look at the collection of resources created in RevitaLESE EU project!