"Good innovation solves an important job well; great innovation makes people feel they’d be worse off without it." – Clayton M. Christensen
Every founder hits a moment where growth stalls.
The early adopters love what you’ve built. You’ve got a product. You’ve got customers. But then—plateau. Your marketing isn’t landing the way it used to. Your product updates feel incremental. And somehow, no matter how many new features you roll out, it’s not driving the kind of traction you expected.
This is the moment when most founders panic. They start chasing competitors, adding features based on customer requests, throwing money at paid ads, and praying that something—anything—will move the needle.
But the real reason your startup isn’t growing?
You stopped solving the right Jobs to Be Done.
NOTE: RCY Labs has curated a list of 52 books for Founders (2025 Edition) who care about business profitability AND impact. Don't have time to read all 52 books? We've got you! We'll read them for you, and give you the summaries, audio casts, outlines, and frameworks to apply to your business ... all FREE in the Founders' Lab Community (on Slack). Join here.
Your Customers Have Changed. Have You?
One of the biggest wake-up calls in Competing Against Luck is that growth doesn’t just come from getting more customers—it comes from solving better, higher-value jobs as your market evolves.
Jobs change. Customers evolve. And if your product doesn’t evolve with them, you’ll lose.
Let’s take a page from Intuit, the makers of QuickBooks.
In the early days, QuickBooks was winning because it solved a simple job for small business owners: “Help me keep track of my business finances without needing an accounting degree.”
But as their customers grew, their needs changed. Suddenly, those same businesses had teams, vendors, cash flow problems, payroll headaches. The original version of QuickBooks wasn’t enough anymore.
And here’s where many companies go wrong: They double down on selling their old job, even when customers have outgrown it.
Intuit didn’t do that. They adapted. They figured out what new jobs their customers needed solved—things like automated tax prep, seamless payroll, deeper reporting.
They didn’t just bolt on features. They built new, complete solutions for the next phase of their customers’ journey.
And that’s why QuickBooks still dominates today.
Why Adding Features Won’t Save You
When growth slows, the knee-jerk reaction is to build more. More integrations, more automation, more bells and whistles.
But complexity isn’t the answer.
Your customers don’t need more features—they need better solutions to their evolving problems.
There’s a story in Competing Against Luck about how MinuteClinic disrupted healthcare by understanding this principle.
For decades, hospitals and doctors’ offices were the go-to places for care. But they were slow, expensive, and inconvenient for minor health issues.
The healthcare industry kept trying to improve the system by adding more—more staff, more appointment scheduling, more digital records. But none of this addressed the real job that patients needed done:
“I need fast, affordable care for minor issues without sitting in a waiting room for three hours.”
MinuteClinic built an entire business around this one job.
- No appointments necessary
- Walk in, get treated, leave in under 20 minutes
- Pricing upfront, no insurance headaches
And just like that, they stole massive market share from traditional healthcare providers.
They didn’t add more complexity. They removed friction.
Now think about your product.
Are you overbuilding? Are you adding new features when you should be removing steps and solving the real job better?
How Founders Can Escape the Growth Plateau
If your startup is stuck, it’s time to step back and reassess your Jobs to Be Done.
1. Interview Your Best Customers
Not just any customers—the ones who are deeply engaged and pay you the most.
Ask them:
- What was happening in your life when you first bought our product?
- What problem were you trying to solve?
- Why did you choose us over the alternatives?
- What struggles do you have now that we’re not solving yet?
You might be shocked at what you uncover.
2. Identify “New Jobs” That Are Going Unsolved
Look at customers who used to buy from you but churned—what changed? Did their needs evolve while your product stayed the same?
Or maybe you’re seeing an entirely new type of customer adopting your product for reasons you didn’t originally design for. That’s a signal of an emerging job you could double down on.
3. Kill the Features That Don’t Solve a Job
This one is tough. But one of the best things you can do for growth is simplify.
A great exercise:
- Make a list of every feature your product has
- Next to each one, write the specific job it solves
- If you can’t match a feature to a job? Consider cutting it.
It’s brutal, but it works.
The Founders Who Win Think in Jobs, Not Features
What Competing Against Luck teaches us is that startups don’t fail because they lack features. They fail because they stop solving the right jobs.
If you want to get unstuck, don’t look at your product roadmap. Look at your customer’s life.
Where are they struggling today?
What progress are they trying to make?
How can you solve their biggest job so well that it makes every alternative irrelevant?
This is how you stop competing against luck—and start competing on certainty.
And in the world of startups, that’s the real advantage.
So, what's your next move?
Let’s build something people can’t live without.
NOTE: RCY Labs has curated a list of 52 books for Founders (2025 Edition) who care about business profitability AND impact. Don't have time to read all 52 books? We've got you! We'll read them for you, and give you the summaries, audio casts, outlines, and frameworks to apply to your business ... all FREE in the Founders' Lab Community (on Slack). Join here.
