‹ The Founder Bookshelf

Competing Against Luck cover

Competing Against Luck

The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

Customers do not buy products, they hire them to do a job.

by Clayton M. Christensen with Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan

Christensen and co-authors lay out the Jobs to Be Done theory: people hire products and services to make progress in specific circumstances of their lives. By understanding the underlying job, companies can innovate predictably rather than relying on luck or correlation data.

Founders constantly chase product-market fit and often misread why customers buy. Jobs to Be Done gives a causal framework for finding real demand, shaping the roadmap, and building products people actually pull into their lives.

Where to get it