Product Opportunities: Finding Gaps Between Supply and Demand Through Change and Users’ Jobs

Verification notes (2026-11-02): This article excerpts course material on Ren Xin’s product methodology. The version published by Hundun Academy concerns the pandemic context of 2020; its judgments about consumption and the economy should be read in that historical setting, not as current forecasts. Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) concerns the progress people seek in particular circumstances, including functional, social, and emotional dimensions. The map and hot pot examples illustrate the course’s discussion; they are not presented as direct quotations from Christensen. Sources: https://www.hundun.cn/articles/6f71449f9da3aa21.html https://www.christenseninstitute.org/book/competing-against-luck/ https://www.christenseninstitute.org/theory/jobs-to-be-done/ ---- #產品思維 #混沌大學任鑫 1. Identify opportunities 2. Build a product that fits 3. Build barriers to create a moat ---- Identifying opportunities: #find the gap between demand and supply Whenever we build a product, our first thought should not be the product itself, but the opportunity. What is an opportunity? It is a gap between what users need and the products and services already available in the market. That gap is the opportunity. Where do gaps come from? One source is changing times: economic, social, and psychological changes lead to changes in demand, while existing supply has not caught up. The resulting gap is an opportunity created by the times. Recognizing it requires us to take a broader view and look further ahead than others. Another way to find opportunities is to look at situations in which users’ needs and the products they receive appear to match. By looking more deeply and clearly, however, we can better understand the job the user wants to accomplish. We may discover that users want more than the products and services they already receive, leaving one or more gaps. These gaps are also opportunities for innovation. #Take a broader, longer view to capture opportunities created by changing times First, consider the economy. The current COVID-19 pandemic has moved countless offline needs online, but many offline businesses are not ready, creating substantial demand for online transformation. If the pandemic continues to spread and deglobalization continues in the period ahead, people will form their own views of the economy: it may experience negative growth, zero growth, or modest growth. What needs would be created under those circumstances, and what needs would disappear? Which industries and approaches would be on an upswing with more opportunities? Which would face a downturn and the resulting challenges—perhaps also creating new opportunities? These are the first questions to consider. For example, if your economic outlook is conservative, would you build a value-for-money brand or a premium, upscale brand? Which would have more opportunities in the coming economic environment? If I still decide on a high-end luxury brand, one option is relatively low-ticket items, such as lipstick at 400 per tube; another is luxury handbags or evening gowns. Which would benefit from those economic conditions? Then consider sales channels. One resembles WeChat-based social selling, mobilizing people throughout society to help sell products; another is a formal system of stores and distributors. With a conservative economic outlook, which sales model would make the fullest use of resources and develop more vigorously? Consider inventory, too. One type of merchant helps brands clear excess inventory; another sells their best current-season goods. Which channel would secure better terms and sell more as the economy slows? Second, consider social change. Falling birth rates and an aging society bring four types of markets: infants and young children, older adults, the idol economy, and the pet economy. Would you ride the waves of the times and society, or go against them? Either can offer opportunities, but the first step is to recognize the broader trend. Third, consider changes in people. Every generation has different attitudes toward consumption, the world, and culture. Users have changed, but products may not have kept up, creating another gap. In terms of lifestyle, younger people are increasingly shifting from starting families and living with relatives to choosing to stay single and share homes with friends. In terms of consumption, they are also more willing to pay for virtual services. These changes create opportunities for product innovation. #Look more deeply to identify room for innovation in users’ jobs The concept of users’ jobs comes from Professor Christensen’s book Competing Against Luck. We frequently discuss disruptive innovation, the innovator’s dilemma, and the discontinuities that arise. How do we bridge those discontinuities? The answer is to go over to the user’s side and understand the user, because what happens on that side is continuous. Professor Christensen proposed a framework for understanding users: JTBD, or Jobs to Be Done. Instead of thinking about which product features users need, we should understand the job they themselves need to accomplish. How can we help them do it better? There is considerable room for innovation here. The jobs framework has another major benefit: helping companies assess and prioritize needs internally. Take a map as an example and break down the levels of the user’s job. At the first level, the job is finding a route. One level deeper, the user wants to reach a destination; finding the route is merely a process, a cost, a means. Deeper still, the user is not simply trying to reach a destination, but to do something there—eat hot pot, for instance. At an even deeper level, the user is not trying merely to do that activity, but to obtain its outcome: not simply eating hot pot, but enjoying the satisfaction it brings. How can we use users’ jobs for product innovation? One framework is jobs, expectations, and constraints. The job is what the user wants to accomplish. It may be functional, such as a test-score improvement class in extracurricular tutoring; emotional, such as women’s handbags or men’s cars; or a combination of both. Expectations are the criteria by which users assess the outcome, somewhat like key performance indicators (KPIs). For example, men expect a razor not only to shave cleanly, but also to minimize cuts and feel comfortable during use. A deeper understanding of the job opens up room for innovation. A deeper understanding of the criteria users apply helps us identify the benefits they value, where our offering falls short and can be improved, and where we can differentiate ourselves from competitors. That is how we find specific opportunities for product innovation. If we have exhausted both areas, there is still another: identify the constraints and obstacles users face in completing the job, and find ways to help them overcome or adapt to those constraints.