What Customers Want - Book Review
Posted: Thu Apr 09, 2009 5:12 pmI just read a rather insightful book called, "What Customers Want."
The whole point of the book is "how to build value." And if you want to be rich or have leverage in this world, then creating value is very important.
The idea is that customers are the ones who define what value is.
Also all products are tools for reaching the customers ends.
So, a hammer is crafted out of a "human centered need." It adapts itself to the "job" a person is trying to accomplish. It is the "job to be done" which limits and shapes the design of the hammer.
And people measure value in how well a product or service allows them to complete a job they are already trying to get done.
So, companies prosper by looking at the jobs that people are trying to get done, then breaking those jobs down into steps and attempting to improve upon some of the steps in the process.
There are also "break-throughs" that may revolutionize how the job is done. But every tool has an end goal or a point of perfection it is trying to reach.
Who wouldn't like to live forever, or or reverse the aging process, or be teleported to the other side of the country.
These are jobs that people would love to get done, but currently technology doesn't exist.
The basic idea.
The idea of the book is that you create value when you help people get jobs done they are already trying to do. The product is a means to their end.
The whole point of the book is "how to build value." And if you want to be rich or have leverage in this world, then creating value is very important.
The idea is that customers are the ones who define what value is.
Also all products are tools for reaching the customers ends.
So, a hammer is crafted out of a "human centered need." It adapts itself to the "job" a person is trying to accomplish. It is the "job to be done" which limits and shapes the design of the hammer.
And people measure value in how well a product or service allows them to complete a job they are already trying to get done.
So, companies prosper by looking at the jobs that people are trying to get done, then breaking those jobs down into steps and attempting to improve upon some of the steps in the process.
There are also "break-throughs" that may revolutionize how the job is done. But every tool has an end goal or a point of perfection it is trying to reach.
Who wouldn't like to live forever, or or reverse the aging process, or be teleported to the other side of the country.
These are jobs that people would love to get done, but currently technology doesn't exist.
The basic idea.
The idea of the book is that you create value when you help people get jobs done they are already trying to do. The product is a means to their end.