JTBD Case Studies

Using JTBD to Triple The Growth Rate

In our most recent deal, we used our equity value creation platform with the CEO of a healthcare technology company to triple the company's growth rate over ‘22 and ‘23. Accelerating a company's growth rate is the most powerful way to create equity value because it creates multiple expansion. Selling a company at a higher multiple than the purchase multiple creates more equity value than using debt or cutting costs.

Listen to our case study interview with Biscom's CEO, Dave Lucey

So how did we accelerate the company's growth and create multiple expansion?

Step 1: Define the Market Using the Customer's Job-to-be-Done.

Parker Gale, a private equity fund, asked us to use our method and platform to understand the market and growth opportunity for buying a 30 year old fax services company called Biscom. The critical starting point in our method is defining the market not by the product ("fax services") but by the customer's underlying job-to-be-done. In this example, the true market is for healthcare companies who need to securely send, receive and take action with private health information. (You can learn more about our definition of markets here.)

Step 2: Identify the Job Steps and Customer Needs

Once we defined the market using the customers JTBD, we identified the 17 steps in the job. Job steps tell the story of what a customer has to do to successfully get their job done. They follow a pattern of planning steps, execution steps, assessing steps, revising steps, and concluding steps. Each step has customer needs. A customer need is an action a customer has to take with a variable to get the job step done. (You can learn more about our definition of customer needs here.) We identify over 100 customer needs in the target customer's JTBD.

Step 3: Identify Unmet Needs, Size the Market Opportunity & Create the Growth Strategy

Once we identified all the customer's needs, we identify which needs are unmet by measure the effort it takes customer's to satisfy their needs with the current competitive solutions. And, unlike traditional methods that use product price and the number of buyer to calculate market size, we using the customer's willingness to pay to get the job done better to size the market opportunity. (You can learn more about our market sizing method here.)

With the unmet needs and the customer's willingness to pay, we now can create the optimal growth strategy in the market. The growth strategy is the foundation of the investment thesis because it shows that we can accelerate the company's growth, expand the valuation multiple, and create equity value with less risk. (You can learn more about our growth strategies here.)

After the acquisition, we worked with the operating team to align product, marketing, and sales activities with the target segment and unmet customer needs in the growth thesis. Just two years later, the fund was able to successfully exit for a fantastic return after Biscom tripled its growth rate.

In this interview, Dave Lucey, the Biscom CEO with whom we partnered, explains how Biscom used Jobs-to-be-Done to grow.

Some of the highlights:

  • Lucey saw an opportunity in "solving more expensive problems for customers" rather than just providing fax services. thrv's Jobs-to-be-Done method confirmed that thesis and the market potential of Biscom.
  • Biscom provided value in post-communication capabilities like context and workflows i.e. other steps in the job-to-be-done that weren't previously part of their marketing messages and sales tactics. This helped drive value-based pricing over a "race to the bottom."
  • With improved messaging and consultative selling based on a deep understanding of their key customers, their needs, and how Biscom satisfied them well, Dave and his executive leadership team refocused the sales operation on generating new sales from existing customers.
  • Focusing on upsells, cross-sells and conversions of existing customers led to tripling Biscom's growth rate.
  • Empirical customer evidence and common language helped align product development, sales, and the board around strategic priorities.
  • The discipline and consistency in applying the jobs-to-be-done framework and focusing on the high opportunity customer needs accelerated transformation and organizational alignment. A "sense of urgency" was not enough to operate faster. They needed to set the right foundation, and Jobs-to-be-Done was a key pillar in the foundation.

Here's the full transcript:

Jared Ranere 0:00

Hello welcome back to how would you beat where we discuss how you can use jobs to be done innovation methods to beat your competition. Remember to subscribe and like this podcast. I'm Jared Ranere, and in this podcast we welcome a special guest, Dave Lucey.

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I'm Jared Ranere

Here we are, I heard that people weren't buying too many fax machines. So David, tell me why you want to join this company? What was the opportunity here?

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And as I understand it, you were able to increase the growth rate over your two years there. And that was a key aspect to the successful exit. Is that right?

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That's great. And did we're able to ride that, was that a phase one? Or were you able to ride that upsell, cross sell conversion for two years to reach your growth targets?

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That's fantastic. That's a great place to end, Dave. Well, I appreciate you joining congrats on all your success. I love hearing the story. I could listen to it for hours.

David Lucey

And awesome. Yeah, we love talking about this stuff. And yeah, we'd love to do it again. All

Jared Ranere

All right, excellent. We will talk soon. Thanks, Dave.