What If Startups Had a Job to Be Done? A Thought Experiment
The startup and innovation landscape is full of frameworks, tools, and methodologies promising to guide teams from zero to traction: Lean Startup, Lean UX, Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Value Proposition Design, Agile, OKRs, and many more. Some provide a high-level overview of the journey, others focus on isolated steps, and many emphasise user-centricity.
Yet most of these approaches share a limitation: they rarely provide guidance on the main task of a young venture itself—validating whether the startup or innovation project has the right to exist as an outcome of the initial investment. Early-stage ventures operate under steep learning curves, often with very limited resources, and they need to discover, experiment, and learn across multiple dimensions at once. User-centered frameworks are invaluable for understanding customers, but they do not ensure that the venture itself is viable, scalable, or worth continued investment.
This essay explores a thought experiment: what if we applied Jobs-to-Be-Done (JTBD) not only to users, but also to the startup itself? Treating the venture as a job performer allows founders and innovation leaders to systematically focus on validating the venture’s right to exist, while still leveraging JTBD for user-centered solution design.
Classic JTBD and Its Limits
JTBD excels at uncovering real user needs. Commuters, for example, hire a milkshake to make their morning drive more tolerable. By focusing on the job, companies design solutions that create meaningful progress.
Yet, traditional JTBD focuses almost exclusively on the user. This can result in:
Symptom-driven solutions: Reacting to visible pain points without addressing structural challenges.
Feature obsession: Iterating endlessly on user-facing features while neglecting business viability.
Validation gaps: A product may help users get a job done, but the venture fails because the broader business model is untested.
The key insight: user-focused JTBD alone cannot ensure a venture’s survival. This is where treating the startup as a job performer offers a macro-level perspective.
The Startup as a Job Performer
At the macro level, the startup’s aspirational job is:
“Validate the venture’s right to exist.”
This framing goes beyond feature development or revenue—it positions the startup as a job performer whose success can be measured. Integrating the mindset from Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden, teams ask:
“What is the next most important thing we have to learn next?”
This ensures focus remains on high-impact learning rather than exhaustive planning or rigid step-by-step processes. It aligns with JTBD by emphasizing outcomes over outputs and complements existing frameworks like the Business Model Canvas.
Why This Approach Works in Practice
Innovation is messy. There are countless methods and frameworks: Lean Startup, Lean UX, Design Thinking, Business Model Canvas, Agile, OKRs, Value Proposition Design. Teams rarely follow a linear sequence—experiments collide, assumptions shift, and learning loops are circular.
JTBD provides a simple, guiding principle for this chaos. If it works for understanding users, why not apply it to the venture itself? By treating the startup as a job performer, founders can:
Focus on the aspirational macro-job: validate the venture’s right to exist.
Run parallel, circular experiments across value proposition, revenue, market, operations, and traction.
Integrate user-level JTBD insights with macro-level learning to align product desirability with venture viability.
Constantly ask “what is the next most important thing we have to learn?” to reduce uncertainty.
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Dual JTBD Lens
User-Level JTBD
Focus: Understand and satisfy user needs.
Methods: JTBD interviews, outcome mapping, prototypes, user testing.
Goal: Deliver solutions people hire because they create meaningful progress.
Startup-Level JTBD (Macro-Level)
Focus: Validate the venture’s right to exist.
Methods: Experiments testing value proposition, revenue model, market, operations, and traction.
Metrics: Willingness-to-pay, repeat adoption, operational reliability, early traction signals, investor interest.
Mindset: Guided by “What is the next most important thing we have to learn?”
Insight: Success requires alignment of both layers: user-focused JTBD ensures desirability, startup-level JTBD ensures viability.
Breaking Down the Startup’s Macro Job
The macro-level job can be broken into measurable sub-jobs, each testable with experiments:
Validate Value Proposition – Do users engage or pay?
Validate Revenue Model – Can the venture capture value sustainably?
Validate Market & Segments – Are the right customers reachable and willing to adopt?
Validate Go-to-Market & Acquisition – Can the startup acquire users efficiently?
Validate Operational Capability – Can the startup reliably deliver at scale?
Secure Early Traction & Resources – Does the venture generate momentum with investors, partners, and team?
These sub-jobs are parallel, circular, and iterative, reflecting the real-world messiness of innovation.
Implications for Founders and Innovation Leaders
Strategic Clarity: A macro-job provides a north star.
Resource Efficiency: Focus on experiments that reduce the highest-risk uncertainties.
Risk Mitigation: Early validation avoids catastrophic failures.
Alignment of Micro and Macro: User JTBD informs product desirability; macro JTBD ensures venture viability.
Evidence-Based Learning: Using Gothelf & Seiden’s mindset ensures experiments are prioritized for maximal learning impact.
Critical Questions
How would treating the startup as a job performer change resource allocation?
Which experiments provide the most decisive evidence about the venture’s right to exist?
How can teams balance user-level insights with macro-level validation?
Could this dual JTBD lens reduce wasted effort compared with conventional frameworks?
How might this approach be adapted to corporate innovation projects with multiple stakeholders?
Conclusion
Extending JTBD beyond users to the venture itself reframes startups and corporate innovation projects as job performers. The aspirational macro-job—validate the venture’s right to exist—guides learning, experimentation, and resource allocation.
User-level jobs ensure solutions are desired.
Startup-level jobs ensure the venture is viable, scalable, and worth continued investment.
Circular, parallel experiments align product desirability with venture sustainability.
Integrating Gothelf & Seiden’s mindset—“what is the next most important thing we have to learn?”—keeps teams focused on high-impact learning instead of execution.
This thought experiment invites discussion: could treating the startup as a job performer fundamentally improve early-stage innovation success?
Want to turn insights into results? I help teams uncover real customer jobs, identify opportunities, and design innovations that actually get used. Let’s talk.