Doing Jobs for B2B Customers

Des Traynor is a cofounder of Intercom, which makes software that helps companies stay in touch with customers via their websites, mobile apps, e‑mail, and Facebook Messenger. Intercom, which now has more than 10,000 customers and grew fourfold in 2015, adopted a jobs-to-be-done perspective to clarify its strategy in 2011, when it was still an early-stage start-up. Traynor spoke about that experience with Derek van Bever and Laura Day of Harvard Business School’s Forum for Growth & Innovation. Here is an edited version of their conversation. FORUM: How did you come across the “jobs” approach to innovation and strategy? TRAYNOR: Somewhat by accident! In 2011 Intercom had just four engineers and some modest VC backing. I was asked to speak about managing a start-up at a conference. Clay Christensen opened the conference…

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Harvard Business Review (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2016

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