How a JBTD workshop helped Katana to understand what customers are thinking? [Case Study]
I am delighted to present Katana and its CMO - Oliver Vesi. Katana was one of my very first clients when I was still working full-time. They’ve had an incredible story of growth from 15 people to over 120 and it gives me great pleasure to share their success story.
Company: Katana
Industry: Manufacturing ERP software
Team: 120+ people
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Services Ott provided: Jobs to Be Done (JTBD) interview method workshop, templates/guides on how to conduct and map JTBD interviews
Katana as a SaaS offers an invaluable service that every manufacturer needs - they give you a full overview of your inventory and sales in real-time. Their manufacturing inventory management software are highly regarded by their clients and voted top Manufacturer Software provider by QuickBooks, Shopify, Capterra and many other product review sites.
Katana founders Kristjan, Priit and Hannes
Katana was founded by Kristjan Vilosius (CEO), Priit Kaasik (CTO) and Hannes Kert (CCO). They had each succeeded professionally in their previous careers and their bond as childhood friends and business partners brought them together to found Katana.
Oliver Vesi, who I interviewed, is my long time friend and joined the company as one of the first employees as the Chief Marketing Officer. A few years back I taught them and the Head of Customer Experience - Chris Jacobs the ins and outs of the Jobs to Be Done method.
What is the Jobs to Be Done framework and what is it used for?
In case you already know about the JTBD framework, skip to the next paragraph.
In short, Jobs to Be Done aka JTBD framework helps you to find out why customers hire or fire your product. Contrary to Personas framework, JTBD doesn’t focus on the customer profile, but rather the job they hire your product for - their current situation, motivation and potential outcome.
If you understand the situation in which people encounter a problem to solve, understand the motivation for solving it, and understand what a great outcome looks like, you can be confident that you would be building a valuable product for your customers.
For me personally, JTBD interviews enable you to establish a detailed timeline how a person ended up trying out your product and give you an in-depth understanding of their whole thought process. On the basis of this valuable information you have so much more information and confidence on how to build your product and conduct your marketing. More practical examples and lessons learned below in the Katana case study.
Why Katana wanted to learn the JTBD interview method?
Katana, a few years back, had an initial product ready and they had around 15 people working there. Furthermore, they already had some customers and were looking to grow and scale even more. In order to do that, they needed a better understanding of the customer and the market they were operating at.
First members of the Katana team
“At that time, Kristjan, Hannes and Chris were all doing customer interviews and trying to understand their needs and at the same time validate our initial version of the product. We were still starting out and there were a lot of unknowns, but we were eager to learn” said Oliver.
“Unfortunately the feedback we got so far was sporadic and didn’t give us the in-depth understanding of the customer. We wanted more quality information from our clients”
In the first stages of a start-up where everyone is doing everything, you usually don’t have functioning methods and workflows in place. That was also the case with Katana and their customer feedback calls.
Oliver added: “As a marketer I noticed that we had some kind of a call script, but the information from the calls was disorganized and didn’t have the information we were looking for. Since I knew that Ott at his job had just finished an extensive customer interview process using the JTBD method, I thought we could use it as well. I proposed the idea of Ott teaching us the JTBD merthod to Kristjan, Hannes and Chris - they gladly agreed.”
JTBD workshop feedback
Indeed, as Oliver mentioned, I had the opportunity to learn and execute the JTBD method at my previous job at Weekdone. Me as a marketing manager and our product manager Reeno Koemets went through an extensive 2-3 month process of learning the method, conducting 30-40 interviews, analyzing the output and finally implementing the learnings in our marketing, product development and sales.
Having the experience and all the necessary frameworks and materials meant that I was able to provide Katana team members with a condensed workshop that included:
The basics of the JTBD framework and what it is used for
Speed up the learning curve with a live example JTBD interview
Show them how to analyze the interview and transform it into a valuable input for your business
Give them the necessary materials to learn JTBD: example outreach email pitch, step by step interview script and finally interview mapping template
Katana’s overall feedback to the workshop was very positive and the real testament to that was the fact they implemented the knowledge immediately.
Oliver Vesi - CMO
“We especially liked the example interview. It gave us a practical understanding of how much more information you can get with the right interviewing technique. With normal interviews you only touch the surface. With the JTBD method you get closer to the truth and to the core where all the useful insights are”
Oliver added: “Now looking back, we should have done a few follow-up meetings to make sure we were implementing it the right way. Also, so many new people have joined and it would be great if it was part of their onboarding.”
How did Katana incorporate the JTBD framework into their work-flow?
Katana team members fundamentally knew what kind of product they were building, but they needed input from customers to develop certain features that their clients would value most and differentiate Katana from other competitors. After the workshop, Kristjan, Hannes and Chris incorporated the knowledge of how to conduct interviews and started the process of collecting more data.
“We took the knowledge of how to conduct interviews and the templates that Ott provided us and added it to our customer feedback workflow. As a bystander, I noticed that soon after the workshop more and more input was posted on our Confluence. We gathered the data for a year or so and on the basis of this input we did our product development” said Oliver.
Katana team 2022
Now that a few years have passed and Katana has grown to be one of the leaders in the industry, they have appointed many people to find out the insights from their customers.
Oliver added: “As we grew and more people joined, the format of collecting customer data has changed, but the underlying principles of JTBD remained. Now, we have automated some of the processes and have people who’s sole focus is to find out what customers are thinking and feeling.”
How JTBD helped Oliver to succeed in marketing?
Besides developing the product, Katana also used the JTBD interview insights to make some of the most important marketing decisions.
“I personally was very motivated to know more about the customer buying journey and the JTBD method was perfect for that. It gives you a customer’s journey timeline and every step along the way until trying out our product - invaluable information for a marketeer”
Another JTBD usage example that Oliver gave me was how to find the cost-efficiency point of some of the paid marketing channels and to help decide whether to invest in it or not. I will let Oliver explain it in detail below as this example rings very true to all SaaS marketeers out there.
“From Google Analytics I could see where most people were coming to our website, but there was a lot of traffic that did not have a specific source. I could see that a lot of the leads came from Google Search, but from the interviews I learned that before they searched for Katana, they saw us on a product review site. Then they opened another tab and googled us. This insight helped us to decide whether to invest in product review sites or not. Without JTBD insights, the channel did not meet our cost efficiency goals. Luckily, from the interviews we found out that a big portion of the clients that were first reported coming from Google Search, actually started their buying journey on the review site. That gave us confidence to invest into product review sites even more and over time it became one of our main paid marketing channels” said Oliver.
Need help with marketing?
Katana also uses customer insights to improve their website and create content. “From client feedback we hear that most manufacturing softwares on the market are too corporate and their customer support is slow. Now, we have put an emphasis on being as transparent as possible - showing the people behind the product and also investing heavily into customer support” said Oliver.
Oliver, what is the single biggest reason you would recommend Ott to other companies?
“Thanks to Ott and the JTBD interviewing technique workshop we have been able to understand our customers, improve our product and position ourselves correctly on the market. Ott is an experienced SaaS marketeer who will give you a clear framework and makes sure you implement it” said Oliver.
