Book review
When Coffee and Kale Compete
A good book about Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), although I found some of its criticism of other practitioners excessive.
A good book about Jobs to Be Done (JTBD), although I found some of its criticism of other practitioners excessive.
Book PDF: When Coffee and Kale Compete.
Selected notes from this 2019 reading
The book treats a Job to Be Done (JTBD) as the progress a customer hopes to make, rather than a feature of a product or a demographic category. Its focus on how people imagine a better version of themselves made me think about what customers actually choose between.
My Queal example was someone who wants to be productive and looks for food that helps. I wondered whether a new solution always displaces an old one and whether that makes competition a zero-sum game. The book's examples of a gym membership, a fancy dinner and a child's birthday party illustrate that customers value the progress a solution enables, not only the moment of use.
Other useful ideas in these notes were to study the push and pull that create demand, and the habits and anxieties that can prevent a switch. I noted that customer interviews should compare previous alternatives and ask what changed when a person began to struggle. Those questions seemed more useful than simply asking what features someone wanted.
This is a selection from a much longer chapter notebook. At the time I also wondered what Queal customers would stop buying if they chose our product, and whether our idea of competition matched theirs.