Data Nexus

Product and interface

The framing that a customer is not buying a product but hiring it to make progress in a situation.

Also called JTBD

01/What it means

The useful discipline is the situation rather than the vocabulary: what was happening immediately before someone went looking, what they used instead, and what would have to be true for them to stop. It relocates competition — a project-management tool competes with a spreadsheet and a group chat, not only with other project-management tools.

It is at its most valuable in pricing and positioning, where the alternative being displaced sets the reference price far more than any competitor's list does.

02/What people get wrong

“Would you use this?” produces agreement and no information. Ask about the last time the problem occurred: what they did, what it cost, what they tried first. Past behaviour is evidence; stated intent is politeness.

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The definitions are the easy part. Whether the figure on your dashboard was computed this way is a different question, and usually the more expensive one.