<ol><li>When did you first realize you [needed something to solve your problem]?</li><li>Where were you?</li><li>Were you with someone?</li><li>What were you doing, or trying to do when this happened?</li></ol>Just like securing a boat at sea, we begun by dropping our bow anchor by starting with the actual purchase; now, we want to drop our stern anchor to secure the timeline reconstruction.We are trying to build the timeline (pictured above) which delineates the progress events our customer encountered on their way to the purchase.

How the process looks

<ol><li>When did you purchase the product?</li><li>Where were you?</li><li>What time of day was it? (daytime/ nighttime?)</li><li>What was the weather like?</li><li>Was anyone else with you at the time?</li><li>How did you purchase the product?</li><li>Did you buy anything at the same time?</li></ol>Using this questions as interview starters will encourage our interviewe to the feeling of remembering.

Get in the mood of remembering 

<ol><li>Tell me about how you looked for a product to solve your problem.</li><li>What kind of solutions did you try? Or not try? Why or why not?</li></ol>Because solutions such as buying hiking boots or getting boots resoled would have negated the need to buy new boots, they are in fact competitions to your product.

Think about competition a bit more holistic

The keystone of the <a href="https://medium.com/the-job-to-be-done">Jobs To Be Done </a>(JTBD) philosophy is the customer interview. When you’re able to work with a customer to relive that moment of struggle they had and ehy they hired a product to relieve them of pain which they felt. Even more interesting, is when we start uncovering our hidden competition (products used to do a job insted of our product).

Jobs to be done

<ol><li>Did you ask anyone about what they thought about the purchase?</li><li>What was the conversation when you talked about purchasing the product with your &lt;spouse/friend/parents&gt;?</li><li>Before purchase did you imagine what using the product would be like? Where were you when you were thinking this?</li><li>Did you have any anxiety about the purchase? Did you hear something about the product that made you nervous? What? Why?</li></ol>Asking someone to analyze why they did something can be tricky. People rarely understand why they did something, rather, they usually rewrite their memory into a story that flatters themselves.

Different circumstances effect our buying decision

If you and your team are not taking advantage of Jobs To Be Done style interviews during customer & market research — you may be digging for copper when you could be striking gold. The keystone of…

Think about competition a bit more holistic

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How to make a good decision

Questions that will identify originals:

Happiness Comes from Solving Problems