Value Proposition · Customer jobs and pains · Component
The pain list
What goes wrong, costs too much or takes too long when the customer does the job today — ranked by severity rather than by how often it is mentioned.
The deliverable
What it is
Pains are collected easily and ranked badly. The ones customers mention most readily are the ones easiest to articulate, which is not the same as the ones that cost most.
The most reliable severity signal is not what someone says but what they already do about it. Effort spent on a workaround is a price already being paid.
One level in
What it is made of
Each element is a constituent part of the component. Follow one to see the attributes it carries.
The severity
How much the pain costs, in whatever unit the customer actually feels — money, time or risk.
3 attributes: Cost of the pain · Frequency · Confidence
LearnThe workaround
What the customer already does about the pain, and what that costs them.
3 attributes: Workaround · Effort spent · Satisfaction with it
Learn
Rank pains by the effort customers already spend working around them, not by how often they are mentioned.
The other components in customer jobs and pains
The job statement
What the customer is trying to get done, written in their situation rather than in the language of your product.
LearnThe gain list
The outcomes the customer wants beyond removing pain — separated into what is expected and what would genuinely surprise.
Learn