by Clayton Christensen
It’s about progress not products
The top 1000 companies spent 680 billion on research and development
Many companies do not use data in a way that uncovers causality or why people buy their products.
Ice cream sales and forest fires are highly correlated but have no causal effect
Jobs to be done theory: A question to ask of your product: what job did I hire this product to do? Our lives are full of jobs we must get done and we buy products that do this job
A job might be to clean my hands so I will hits hand soap
Many models are masters of description but failures of prediction
Many rely on luck, if you understand the right questions to ask you will be competing against luck
“We’re lost but we’re making good time”
— Yogi Bera
Why is success so hard to sustain?
Theory of disruptive innovation: companies are replaced by companies who offer a cheaper and simpler solution to a problem — the natural competitive response to something
In an attempt to discover why customers bought milkshakes a restaurant asked them how they could improve the product to make them want to buy more. Nothing changed from this. They then asked what job were they hiring the milkshake to do.
In the morning people hired milkshakes to make their commute more interesting and fill them up. The milkshake was competing against bagels, yogurt, donuts and bananas
In the afternoon people hired milkshakes to placate their children. The milkshake was competing against going to the toy store and shooting hoops in the yard.