Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice

by Clayton M. Christensen

Consider some of the most recent entrepreneurial success stories through the lens of a Job to Be Done. Take Airbnb, for example. Airbnb could be reduced to its function—providing a place to stay when traveling. On that level, it’s competing against hotels. And by traditional measures of quality in the hotel industry, Airbnb is a far inferior option. Who would pay to stay on an air mattress on the floor of a stranger’s apartment—or sleep in a stranger’s spare bed—rather than stay in the privacy of their own hotel room? It turns out, lots of people. People weren’t hiring Airbnb only because it’s a place to stay. They were hiring Airbnb because having a place to stay allows them to be someplace so they can participate in something in which they want to be part—and because it offers a more authentic local experience than a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-the-world hotel chain. Airbnb initially identified a Job to Be Done in cofounder Brian Chesky’s own life. As a new college graduate in San Francisco, Chesky could barely afford his own rent, let alone find the fees to attend a local design conference. When he realized that all the hotels in the area were sold out—and that there must be other aspiring designers with the same struggle he had—he came up with the idea to “rent” three air mattresses in his apartment to help fund his own conference attendance. He could imagine himself as one of those air mattress renters if he found himself in the same circumstances in another city. He...