Article · ~8 min read

Clay Christensen's Milkshake Marketing

Clayton Christensen (via Harvard Business School) · HBS Working Knowledge Free Beginner

The primary-source telling of the milkshake story, the single most memorable illustration of Jobs to Be Done, straight from Christensen and HBS. The best on-ramp to JTBD.

  • Customers 'hire' products to do a job in a specific situation
  • The milkshake was hired to make a boring commute bearable, not just for taste
  • Understand the job, and the right product improvements become obvious
  • Demographics miss the point, situation and job drive purchases
Open on library.hbs.edu ↗

It answers 9 questions

  1. What does 'jobs to be done' actually mean?
  2. How is JTBD different from features, personas, or user needs?
  3. Who are my real competitors once I think in jobs to be done?
  4. How do I turn a trend I've noticed into an actual product idea I can build?
  5. How do I evaluate whether an idea is big enough to be worth years of my life?
  6. I've done 20 interviews and every person described a slightly different problem. How do I know if there's a real pattern or just noise?
  7. Every user interview gives me a different feature request. How do I turn messy feedback into a real prioritisation decision?
  8. How do I turn a vague hunch that something is broken into a sharp, testable idea?
  9. How do I validate an idea in a crowded market that already has big competitors?

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