Forget Job-to-be-Done theory. Concentrate on Goals and their hierarchy.
Explore how understanding consumer goals and obstacles leads to successful product development, focusing on a hierarchy of goals for intuitive, effective solutions.
Ciao,
In the past few months, I have written a few posts that, if read sequentially, show how I try to explain the topic of innovation and product management in my courses:
Innovation and technology. I offer my definition of innovation and clarify the relationship between the development of a technology and its transformation into a successful product.
Why we buy products and services. I explain why creating a new product requires identifying problems preventing potential customers from achieving goals.
Goal hierarchies. This is the topic I will cover today.
All of this could be material for a book. If I decide to write it, I will do so publicly, writing it piece by piece in this newsletter.
Table of Contents
Forget Job-to-be-Done theory. Concentrate on Goals and their hierarchy
Global Health Successes in 2023 by Mohammad Al-Ubaydli (Patients Know Best)
The Rise and Impact of Startup Studios
Startup Investors Have Fled The Metaverse
Apple’s Interview Secrets: Top 28 Product Management Questions Revealed
Forget Job-to-be-Done. Concentrate on Goals and their hierarchy.
I have never been a big fan of the Job-to-be-Done theory because it seems like an unnecessary complication to me. As Christensen himself explains on Harvard Business Review:
After decades of watching great companies fail, we’ve come to the conclusion that the focus on correlation—and on knowing more and more about customers—is taking firms in the wrong direction. What they really need to home in on is the progress that the customer is trying to make in a given circumstance—what the customer hopes to accomplish. This is what we’ve come to call the job to be done.
We all have many jobs to be done in our lives. Some are little (pass the time while waiting in line); some are big (find a more fulfilling career). Some surface unpredictably (dress for an out-of-town business meeting after the airline lost my suitcase); some regularly (pack a healthful lunch for my daughter to take to school). When we buy a product, we essentially “hire” it to help us do a job. If it does the job well, the next time we’re confronted with the same job, we tend to hire that product again. And if it does a crummy job, we “fire” it and look for an alternative. (We’re using the word “product” here as shorthand for any solution that companies can sell; of course, the full set of “candidates” we consider hiring can often go well beyond just offerings from companies.)
Consultants and professors have a bad habit of branding their ideas by inventing difficult terms to explain simple things.
It is possible to express the same idea underneath the JTBD in a simpler way and without introducing fancy terms that require elaborate explanations (as I explained in a previous post of mine):
People buy and use products and services to achieve a goal under certain circumstances. Substituting the term Job-to-be-Done with the term Goal allows us to reason about the nature of goals. I distinguish between needs, goals, and ToDos.
Needs are constant over time. There are several needs classifications, but the most popular is Maslow’s pyramid. The American psychologist used the terms “physiological”, “safety”, “belonging and love”, “social needs” or “esteem”, “self-actualization” and “transcendence” to describe the pattern through which human needs and motivations generally move. This means that, according to the theory, for motivation to arise at the next stage, each prior stage must be satisfied by an individual (Wikipedia).
If needs are constant over time, what changes is the way to satisfy them. For example, we all need to eat, but each era and culture has worked out its way of satisfying this need:
Before the 1900s, women’s daily life revolved around food preparation and other household and childcare responsibilities. Seasonal availability and preservation methods constrained their diet. However, the 20th century witnessed a transformation with the advent of refrigeration technology in homes, enhancing food storage duration and safety.
As women’s emancipation progressed, reducing the time available for domestic tasks, there was a shift in culinary objectives. This period saw the introduction of pre-cooked meals, the invention of the microwave oven, and similar innovations. By the 2000s, a noticeable trend emerged: the increasing popularity of dining out and the expansion of food delivery services.
While the fundamental need for food remained unchanged, the methods and objectives to fulfill this need evolved. Goals and ToDos shape the environment for innovation and the development of new products.
Understanding the hierarchy of goals is vital to successful product development. This approach involves recognizing consumers' primary goals and tasks, identifying the obstacles they encounter, and designing products or services that effectively remove these obstacles or facilitate faster, easier achievement of these goals.
This perspective focuses on the layered nature of objectives, where a series of sub-goals or tasks support higher-level goals. By considering this hierarchy, developers and designers can gain deeper insights into consumer needs and behaviors. This approach can be more intuitive and user-friendly compared to the Jobs-to-be-Done framework, as it aligns more closely with the natural progression of how individuals think about and pursue their goals.
Global Health Successes in 2023 by Mohammad Al-Ubaydli (Patients Know Best)
Mohammad Al-Ubaydli founded Patients Know Best, a company that provides healthcare organizations with personal health records software to enable patients to manage their health better. Mohammad is also an avid reader and podcast listener. His LinkedIn profile is a continuous source of interesting food for thought. In December, he published a list of good health news and allowed me to republish it in Radical Curiosity.
Fast vast health news from 2023… First, the infectious diseases the world eliminated:
No more hepatitis C in Egypt (The New York Times).
Maldives is the first country to eliminate leprosy (Twitter).
Bangladesh was the first country to eliminate black fever (The Business Standard) and elephantiasis (World Health Organization).
Niger is the first African country to eliminate river blindness (World Health Organization).
Trachoma is gone in Benin, Mali, and Iraq (World Health Organization).
Rubella is gone in Timor-Leste, Bhutan, and North Korea (World Health Organization).
Malaria is gone in Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Belize (World Health Organization).
Speaking of malaria, after 70 years of trying to create a single vaccine, we now have two. Mosquirix is in 9 African countries this year (it reduces severe malaria by 22%, and reduces deaths from all causes by 13%). In October, the WHO approved a second, cheaper version called R21/Matrix-M, and UNICEF will distribute it to millions of children in 2024 (World Health Organization).
Speaking of new therapies, Ozempic and Wegovy proved significant weight loss, reduced symptoms of heart failure, and lowered the risk of heart attacks and strokes.
In science fiction news, CRISPR was approved for treating sickle cell disease in the United Kingdom, Bahrain, and the United States. I love this thoughtful article by Jimi Olaghere: I received the new gene-editing drug for sickle-cell disease. It changed my life.
You can read about these and many more good news items in Future Crunch’s year-round review. We have solutions, they do work, let’s do more of them.
Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
The Rise and Impact of Startup Studios
Max Pog published a beautiful research paper on startup studios worldwide in September.
Max Pog's study showcases the increasing influence of startup studios, noting a doubling in their number since 2018 to 877. Startup studios' growth is linked to their efficient methods of developing and launching companies. They provide structured frameworks for ideation, minimum viable product (MVP) creation, and product launch, leading to quicker funding rounds and exits than traditional startups.
Investors show increasing interest in startup studios, indicated by significant funding and high internal rates of return (IRRs). Leading studios, like Atomic and Expa, attract substantial investments from prominent VCs and demonstrate high IRRs, signifying efficient capital use and successful exits. The studio model's higher success rates in securing seed and Series A funding reshape investment strategies in the entrepreneurial sector.
Differences between VC funds, accelerators, incubators, and startup studios lie in their engagement level and startup involvement stage. VC funds invest in more mature startups with minimal operational involvement. Accelerators support early-stage startups, often in brief programs. Incubators help refine ideas and form teams at even earlier stages. Startup studios actively create and develop startups, often as co-founders, providing extended support. Each model varies in investment efficiency, with studios offering more comprehensive and long-term support.
Venture studios take larger equity stakes in startups than accelerators, justified by their deeper involvement and extensive support. Studios focus on fewer ventures, offering resources equivalent to several full-time employees. This significant involvement warrants their higher equity stakes, ranging from 20-40% or more, reflecting their co-founder role and significant contributions to startup development.
Startup studios source ideas through expert interviews, internal brainstorming, crowdsourcing, and market analysis, filtering many ideas to launch a few companies annually. They invite external teams with early-stage ideas for further development, emphasizing their role as founders or co-founders. This idea sourcing diversity is critical to their continuous innovation and new venture launches.
Startup studios typically adopt a holding company, a fund, or a dual-entity model. The choice depends on investment strategy, operational costs, and legal considerations.
A successful startup studio typically needs $2M to $10M in initial capital sourced from founders' funds, angel investors, venture capital, corporate investments, and state support programs. Each funding source offers unique advantages and challenges, influenced by the studio's strategy, network, and investor access.
Last week, Max also hosted the Venture Capital Online Conference and you can watch the recording on YouTube.
Startup Investors Have Fled The Metaverse
This report from Crunchbase highlights a significant decline in venture funding for metaverse-related startups in 2023, marking a multiyear low. Interest in consumer-focused virtual worlds and augmented reality has waned, with no significant U.S. funding rounds for consumer-facing virtual world companies.
While Meta struggles with its Horizon Worlds platform, Apple's upcoming Vision Pro headset release could rejuvenate interest in immersive digital worlds. Bye bye, Metaverse. Welcome spatial computing.
Apple’s Interview Secrets: Top 28 Product Management Questions Revealed
The summary of this video was generated through an automated process developed by Marco Moauro (technical details here). The software pulls subtitles from videos released weekly on selected YouTube channels. These transcripts are then processed through ChatGPT to generate summaries. Subsequently, these summaries are compiled into a draft on Substack.
While not entirely flawless, the system provides a concise overview of a list of videos that would require hours to consume, enabling you to decide which one is worth watching. This week, the script suggested nine videos to watch; this is the one I chose. Marco also manages Quickview, an automatic newsletter about cryptocurrencies.
The transcript provides an in-depth look at the interview process for product management positions at Apple, offering insights into the types of questions and strategies that candidates can expect. The speaker, Dr. Nancy Li, emphasizes the challenging and secretive nature of Apple’s interview process, highlighting the importance of being well-prepared.
The interview questions at Apple are categorized into behavioral, situational, product design, technical, and product strategy.
Behavioral questions make up more than half of the interview, focusing on management style, motivation, strengths, and knowledge-building. The speaker recommends using the 3x2 framework to structure responses effectively.
Situational questions delve into past and future job experiences, requiring specific examples and deep dives into challenging projects.
Product design questions at Apple are unique in that they test candidates’ knowledge of Apple products and their ability to improve upon them. The speaker advises using the modified circles framework to address these questions, emphasizing the importance of exploring customer pain points and segmentation before proposing improvements.
Technical questions vary based on the specific team being applied to, with examples including data utilization, algorithm development, and system design. The speaker suggests that candidates understand the technical aspects relevant to their desired team and use system thinking methodology to approach complex technical questions.
Product strategy questions assess candidates’ strategic thinking and ability to develop long-term roadmaps. The speaker introduces the Gucci framework, which focuses on goals, customer needs, segmentation, competition, and integrated ecosystems, as a tool for addressing these questions effectively.
Problem-solving questions, such as handling an assembly line breakdown, require the use of root cause analysis to identify and address the underlying issues. Additionally, the speaker highlights the increasing importance of AI in product management and suggests using the Gucci framework to address AI-related questions, considering factors such as user segmentation and key concepts in AI.
The speaker also provides resources for further preparation, including free training videos and a database of interview questions from top companies. The emphasis is on thorough preparation, understanding the company's products and culture, and utilizing effective frameworks to structure responses.
Overall, the transcript offers valuable insights and practical advice for individuals preparing for product management interviews at Apple, emphasizing the need for comprehensive preparation across various interview question categories.
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Thanks for taking the time to read this episode of my newsletter. I hope I’ve been helpful. If you think my sketchbook might interest someone else, I’d be glad if you shared it on social media and forwarded it to your friends and colleagues.
Nicola