#018 - Why not to out-innovate your customer, with Alan Klement, Entrepreneur & Innovator, USA

The Hardware Entrepreneur

My guest is Alan Klement, Entrepreneur&Innovator, and thought-leader on the Job To Be Done (JTBD) framework. This is a concept that every innovator should hear about.

This episode is all about JTBD, one of my favorite topics.

Alan has the mission to help teams and individuals become great at making and selling products that people will buy. His own experience as a successful innovator and entrepreneur is what make him effective at helping others. He has applied successfully Jobs to be Done theory to his own businesses and has helped many others do the same.

On October 2nd 2016, Alan released the first book dedicated to Jobs to be Done (JTBD): "When Coffee and Kale Compete". It develops Jobs to be Done theory and features interviews with entrepreneurs who've applied Jobs to be Done to create successful companies and products. It is a book dedicated to helping you become better at creating and selling products that people will buy.

Raw transcript is available at: https://www.thehardwareentrepreneur.com

Enjoy listening.

Show highlights can be seen below:

• When coffee and kale compete – [3:26]
• How customers really view competition – [4:16]
• Schumpeter, Karl Marx and the concept of creative destruction – [6:10]
• What started Alan’s deep dive into the topic of JTBD – [7:55]
• What is exactly JTBD theory and its connection with Sigmund Freud, Steve Jobs, Ferrari, Porsche – [10:22]
• The story behind the unexpected failure of chotuKool – [14:20]
• What are people going to stop doing when they start using your product? – [19:30]
• Switch or not to switch from using “Tide” detergent – [21:35]
• What if Apple had introduced the iPhone in 2000? – [22:30]
• Don’t out-innovate the customer – [23:10]
• What if there was no iPod first, just an iPhone coming out? – [23:55]
• If you could time travel back to the time when you were in your early 20s, what notes would you give yourself? – [25:00]
• Books which had a big impact on Alan’s way of thinking and career – [25:25]
• Alan’s creative habits – [26:41]
• Cultural differences between Westerns, Eastern Europeans, Chinese – [28:00]
• Best way to reach Alan – [31:00]