You have all the data. You're still guessing why they bought.
Dear founder,
Sometimes it's churn you can't explain. Sometimes it's two teams who both claim to know the customer and can't agree on who they are. Sometimes it's growth that's stalled and no one wants to say so out loud.
Dashboards won't answer the question underneath any of that: why did they actually choose us? Surveys won't either. Focus groups don't even come close.
We've spent the last decade interviewing the people who chose you, the ones who didn't, and the ones who left. We use the Harvard-backed Jobs to Be Done framework Bob Moesta co-created with Clayton Christensen, trained by Bob directly for twelve years. Then we show you what we heard, in your customers' own language.
Neal Sales-Griffin & Lilliana Robinson
Founders and researchers, Shokuna
People don't buy products. They hire them to make progress.— Bob Moesta, Jobs to Be Done
When someone signs up, they're recruiting something to help them get from where they are to where they want to be.
If it works, they keep it. If it doesn't, they fire it.
The job is the progress. Your product is one candidate for the role.
A puzzle company we worked with assumed they competed with Ravensburger (one of the biggest puzzle brands in the world). The truth, from their customers' own mouths, was that they competed with doomscrolling, Netflix in silence, and a hot bath. Once we named that, their marketing changed in a week.
Their best customers weren't "women 35–55." They were postpartum moms with one quiet hour, healthcare workers off an eleven-hour shift, grad students after a paper is in. The moment a person reached for the product was the real segment. Demographics never told them that.
Socialinsider called it "social analytics" in every official material. Their customers were describing a much narrower job in every interview. That mismatch was costing them roughly half their content. Customer language isn't decoration. It's strategy.
Learned to build with focus and constraint from Jason Fried and the 37signals team. Through them met Bob Moesta, who showed him how people actually decide: why they fire one thing and hire another. Teaches entrepreneurship at Northwestern.
Has taught this craft to hundreds of founders at Northwestern and shaped customer understanding for more than 150 Techstars companies. Years of training directly under Bob Moesta inform every engagement she runs.
We learned this from Bob Moesta, who co-created the Harvard-backed Jobs to Be Done framework with Clayton Christensen. Twelve years of practice, still ongoing.
We interview your wins, your losses, and your churn. We're listening for the moment they started looking, the alternatives they considered, the anxiety they felt before saying yes. It works because we ask about decisions, not opinions.
Push from the old way. Pull toward the new. Anxiety about switching. Habit holding them back. We map yours and walk you through the patterns weekly. By week three, your team starts spotting them in their own conversations.
You'll leave with messaging anchored to words your customers actually used, a roadmap tied to the jobs you're being hired for, and a sales conversation your team can have without guessing. Our analysis and insights become the foundation your product and marketing decisions are built on, the lens your long-term strategy gets read through.
For teams who want to run their own customer research and need to learn how. You leave with a method your team can repeat without us in the room.
For when your dashboards don't add up to a story and you need the real one. You leave with the patterns behind your customers' decisions, in their words.
For when the answer matters enough to change how you sell, build, and tell the story. You leave with all of it anchored to what your customers actually said.
Pick someone who chose you. Tell us their story in your own words. Our preview experience asks the questions we'd ask in a real interview, then shows you what your account of them is missing. Five minutes. Right here.
Start your storyTell us what you're trying to figure out. We'll tell you whether we can help.
Book a conversation or write us at founders@shokuna.com