What is jobs to be done (JTBD)?
Jobs to be done (JTBD) is a way of understanding demand which holds that customers don't simply buy products: they "hire" them to make progress in a specific situation, and "fire" whatever did the job before — a competitor, a spreadsheet or an intern. The job, more than the customer's demographics, explains why they buy.
Where it comes from
Jobs to be done is most closely associated with Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, whose theory it is that companies should understand the progress customers are trying to make rather than segmenting by customer attributes.1,2 His best-known illustration is a fast-food chain's milkshake, bought on morning commutes for reasons that had little to do with flavour.2
Jobs to be done in B2B SaaS messaging
Des Traynor, co-founder of Intercom, applies it to messaging with three rules:
- Position against the job, not a competitor's feature list. The real competition is whatever does the job today, however crude.
- Describe the progress, not the product: "get from X to Y without Z".
- One product, one primary job. A homepage that lists six jobs gets hired for none.
How to find the job
Interview recent buyers about the moment they decided to look for something new. Cindy Alvarez's rules apply: ask "tell me about the last time you dealt with this", never "would you use a tool that does this?"; don't pitch; listen for workarounds and money already spent. The job lives in the situation that pushed them to act.
Worked example
A fictional scheduling tool thought its job was "online booking". Interviews with ten recent customers told a different story: most bought in the week a receptionist quit.
- Situation: a small clinic suddenly without front-desk cover.
- Job: keep the diary full without anyone answering the phone.
- What got fired: a temp receptionist and a voicemail box.
New homepage line: "Keep your diary full without a receptionist." The competition is no longer other booking apps; it's hiring a temp.
Why it matters from €0 to €1M ARR
- Pre-revenue: the job tells you which problem to build around and who has it urgently.
- Around €10k MRR: interview your fastest closers. Their shared job is the core of your positioning.
- €50k+ MRR: new jobs appear as you grow. Add them to the roadmap only if they serve the same buyer.
Common JTBD mistakes
- Listing features as jobs. "Export to PDF" is a task, not progress.
- Asking hypothetical questions. People are honest about the past and polite about the future.
- Ignoring the non-software alternative. The thing you replace is often a person or a spreadsheet.
Positioning Stress Test
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What is an example of a job to be done in B2B SaaS?
How is jobs to be done different from a buyer persona?
How do you run a jobs-to-be-done interview?
Who wrote this
Madalena Rugeroni built Mazo. She's an ex-Googler, a startup advisor and investor, and runs a portfolio of internet companies. Before that, as Head of Growth at Amplemarket, she scaled a B2B SaaS to $10M ARR. LinkedIn
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- Jobs-to-be-done theory: Clayton M. Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon and David S. Duncan, "Know Your Customers' Jobs to Be Done", Harvard Business Review (September 2016)
- Christensen and the milkshake example: Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, "Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing" (2011)
Operators and books referenced: Des Traynor (Intercom), Cindy Alvarez (Lean Customer Development). These are published methodologies credited to their authors; Mazo is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.