In this episode of Jobs-to-be-Done Radio, Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek sit down with photographer Erika Dufour and Jason Fried of 37signals to disrupt professional photography using Jobs-to-be-Done. Erika built Snip Snap Go, an affordable studio where small-business owners shoot their own product photos in a pre-lit setup, after attending a Switch Workshop and interviewing her own customers. The conversation is a live coaching session: hear how the four forces, the struggling moment, and the timeline of a switch explain why jewelry makers, Etsy sellers, and e-commerce founders finally hire a service like hers.
Use the player above, then read on for the key takeaways and the complete transcript, organized by topic with short explainers of the core Jobs-to-be-Done concepts. You will see how to surface hidden anxiety, why the emotional payoff hides in the customer’s own product, and how to find the buyer who is really making the switch.
Key takeaways
- The product is the lighting, not the camera. Customers blame their cheap camera and buy a more expensive one. The real job Erika does is the lighting and the expertise wrapped around the camera, which is why a $2,000 SLR still fails them.
- The push is the website, the clock is the trigger. Founders get everything done except the photo, and a crappy picture will not sell the product. Time pressure is what finally forces the switch from do-it-yourself to a service.
- The anxiety is emotional, not rational. “If this sucks, I suck.” Putting a camera in someone’s hands creates fear because they are creating something, so the work is to reduce that anxiety, not just sell features.
- The emotional payoff comes from the object, not the photo. The euphoria customers feel is about finally seeing the thing they made represented well. Capturing that before-and-after shift is the value Erika delivers.
- The real buyer may not be the owner. Web designers, Shopify, and bead and craft stores all sit upstream of the struggling moment. Selling through them reaches the customer at the point of non-consumption.
What is Snip Snap Go: a job-to-be-done in affordable photography
Chris: We’re here at 37signals with Erika Dufour, as always, Bob Moesta, Chris Spiek, and Jason Fried is here. We want to talk about SnipSnapGo.com. Give us a little background. What is Snip Snap Go? Can you tell just about the product and the company?
Erika: Absolutely. It started as, I’m a photographer by trade, and I started noticing that a lot of people needed affordable photography. The thing that was missing and that is missing and that does not exist in the industry is affordable photography that’s lit well. I realized that I had assets, being the knowledge of lighting, I had the cameras, the softwares, everything was already there. I realized what if I just set up the system for them and people can take their own photos? It’s like a no-fail system, so what happens is people come in, they book a session, they pay $100 an hour, and then I have everything set up, exposure, everything, and they shoot their own products, or portraits or fashion, whatever.
Chris: So, as a photographer, you’ve essentially taken yourself out of the mix? You’re not changing things on the fly. You’re really setting it up and saying, “Come in and just take the pictures.”
Erika: Exactly. What’s really amazing is that people actually really do know what they want, and they don’t need me to take the photos.
Jason: It sounds to me like people know what they want it to look like, but they don’t know how to make it look that way.
Erika: Exactly.
Jason: And you make it look that way, and they just press the button.
Erika: Yeah. I add the light.
Concept · The basics
What is a “job-to-be-done”?
A job is the progress a person is trying to make in a particular circumstance. Erika’s customers are not hiring a photographer. They are hiring a way to get a good photo of the thing they made so they can sell it online. The product, the camera, and even the lighting are means to that end. Once you see the job, you stop competing with other photographers and start competing with whatever the customer does today instead.
Why people switch: the struggling moment and non-consumption
Bob: You came to a Switch Conference November last year, something like that. You learned some of the techniques of what we talked about in terms of just interviewing and talking, right?
Erika: Yes.
Bob: Why are people switching?
Erika: They’re switching because they are at, most of my clients have reached a point where they have a website even already built. Then the last piece is a photo. They don’t have a photo. That is where it stops, because photography is extremely expensive and most people are, a jewelry company, just one lady decided she wanted to quit her job and wants to sell her jewelry, and they get stuck in that position and then that’s where I come in.
Chris: Are they trying to take their own photographs first or are they, what are their alternatives at this point?
Erika: Yes. What I’ve heard, through interviews, is I’ve asked, “What have you been doing before Snip Snap Go?” One person said they would bring their furniture outside. They were shooting their own. They would bring it outside, in full sun and put a sheet up. Then they would shoot it either with their iPhone or other people research cameras and they get all confused by the guys at the store.
Chris: And their jewelry-makers, right? They’re like, “I don’t want to become a photographer. I just need a picture.”
Erika: Exactly. They buy the cameras. Some people even buy the lights and the light box, where it’s like this diffused box. You put your stuff in it and you put the lights around it, and then they try the software and they try editing in iPhoto, and it’s this whole pile of stuff that they get distracted from their own work.
Bob: It makes them less productive. The push is the Web, basically, “I’ve got to get the website done. I can sell more if I just get, and they’ll take pictures on their own.” It’s not cutting it. Otherwise, they’ve got to take a whole day, wait for a nice day, pull all that stuff out there. They could be making jewelry but instead they’re trying to set the stuff up outside.
Erika: Exactly.
Bob: And then some of them say, “Well, I will buy the equipment,” and they buy the equipment, but they don’t realize the learning curve with all the software, everything else, and they still don’t know what they’re doing, because they just want to go make jewelry or they want to go do what they do.
Concept · The struggling moment
Non-consumption is where the opening hides
Before Erika existed, her customers were not buying anything. They were dragging furniture into the sun, putting up a sheet, buying a camera they could not use, and getting confused at the store. That is non-consumption: the customer would rather struggle with a bad makeshift option than hire a traditional photographer. Find the struggle and you have found the opening. The job is not to beat other photographers. It is to beat the sheet in the backyard.
The real product: lighting, not the camera
Erika: Everyone has the belief that they are a photographer because everyone has a camera. That is why they end up doing that. Then they realize, “Okay. My photos look inconsistent and junky as far as product photography.”
Bob: My belief is they contribute it to the camera. They say, “Oh, it’s a much better camera. That’s the thing. They don’t realize it’s the thing wrapped around it. I can probably swap out three cameras.
Jason: They all look good, if the lighting’s right.
Erika: The camera is a box that records the light that is bouncing off the object.
Jason: What I wonder is, if somebody goes out and buys a digital SLR for 1500 bucks, they assume that’s an awesome camera. It is. Why do they assume they can’t take good pictures with it? How do you get the people who have the nice camera but don’t understand that can’t take a good picture with it because it comes down to lighting?
Erika: Right. And it takes a year of them to fail for them to finally come to me, because they will refuse to.
Bob: Diffusion, all the different aspects of how much working knowledge you have to say, “This is lit well,” that’s what you’re selling.
“The camera is a box that records the light that is bouncing off the object.”Erika Dufour
Two timelines: the trial versus the repeat purchase
Bob: I think there’s two. This is a really good example of where I think they buy the first time for one reason, and I think they repeat for possibly a different reason.
Erika: Yeah.
Bob: Part of it’s going in, it might not be about lighting, but as they’re there, if you can educate them about the lighting part of it, that’s why they come back. To me, it’s the difference between trial and consumption.
Chris: I don’t think the, I’ll digress, I think any amount on any camera, you’re going to run into this situation. This is a reversal of what we normally run into, so a lot of times we see a product purchase where they will start with the product and they’ll blame themselves on using it wrong. After a time, they’ll say, “I’ve tried everything I can. This product sucks.” Then it gets punted. This is the opposite. They’ll buy it. From what I’m hearing, I’m starting to believe they’ll work their way to a position of, “It’s me, and I can overcome it. I’ll go to the library. I’ll check out books. I’ll go to photo blogs and I’ll start reading and reading and reading and designing this whole thing to get myself to a point where I can take a really good photo.
Chris: Well, can the website wait for you to be an amazing photographer? No, I’ve got to come up with something else.
Jason: That’s a good line. I like that, too. Can the website wait for you?
Bob: Well, I think it gets back to your notion of time, right? See, the thing is, they run out of time because they realize there’s so much they need to learn to do what they’ve got to do, and it’s all about, a crappy picture is not going to allow them to sell the product. It’s the ultimate salesman that they’re looking for, so to me, it gets back to is, their time is spent and what they want to do is make more jewelry.
Concept · The timeline
When does the clock force the switch?
Every switch has a timeline: first thought, passive looking, active looking, then the decision. Here the website is built and waiting, and the photo is the last missing piece. The customer keeps telling themselves they can learn photography, until the clock runs out and the website cannot wait any longer. That moment, when “I’ll do it myself” collides with the deadline, is when they finally go active and hire a service.
The anxiety of the new solution: “if this sucks, I suck”
Erika: I usually interview, okay, first of all, when they come in, I say hi or whatever, and “How did you hear of Snip Snap Go?” Then usually I do a little audio interview afterwards, like “How did it go?” I observed their behavior, and there’s so much fear of getting it wrong beforehand, and nervousness, like, “I don’t know. I’ve never touched a camera.
Erika: here’s the myth that I keep erasing from these people’s minds. You don’t need an awesome camera. I actually teach them how to use their iPhone. You don’t need awesome lights.
Erika: all these myths like, you put a camera in someone’s hands and they’re scared shitless. I don’t know why, because they drive an expensive car and they’re not afraid of that. If you put a camera in their hands, they freak out. I’m like, “This is just a box of light. It’s no big deal. The fear goes away. There’s all this fear pent up with cameras.
Chris: What is that anxiety? My head keeps going back to the, I’m not a good, if you ask me to draw a glass, I don’t know that I’d be anxious, because I kind of know you guys, but it wouldn’t be a good, so the difference between driving the car and using the camera is that I’m creating something. Even if it’s digital and I can just hit delete, there’s something that happens when I snap that photo. It’s like, “I have created this.”
Chris: If this sucks, I suck.
Chris: if I look at the forces and all of the anxiety is around, “I’m going to go and I’m going to pull the trigger and it’s going to be terrible,” then the photographer’s going to be there and she’s going to laugh at me, and I’ve made no progress.
Erika: Yeah. “She’s going to laugh at me.” Actually, that’s a really good [point].
Concept · The Four Forces of Progress
Why the bottom half decides the switch
Two forces drive change: the push of the situation (the website is waiting, the clock is ticking) and the pull of the new solution (great photos, cheap and fast). Two forces hold it back: the anxiety of the new and the habit of the present. In this business the pull is obvious, so the battle is the bottom half. The anxiety is intense because the customer is creating something. “If this sucks, I suck.” Reduce that anxiety, with a guarantee, a before-and-after, or simply making it feel like no big deal, and the switch happens.
“If this sucks, I suck.”Chris Spiek
The emotional payoff lives in the object, not the photo
Bob: So, I get back to the emotional release. So there’s this fear going in, like, “I’ve taken pictures of this thing and I don’t know what I’m doing. It doesn’t look right,” and you do one thing. I’m trying to figure out the, “Oh my god,” the emotional, is it calming, is it excitement?
Chris: The interesting thing is, it gets back to what you said before, is that the emotional energy comes from the object that they created, not the photo.
Jason: That’s right.
Chris: So there’s something about, “I worked so hard on the earrings, and they’ve never been represented until it just showed up on the tethered computer, and it’s like [makes sound], the whole…”
Bob: It is what I thought I wanted it to be…
Erika: Finally.
Bob: Well, it’s almost like the baby’s not ugly, right?
Erika: Exactly.
Bob: It’s not like it’s like, “Oh my god, this is not my child. This is not what you look like.” There it is. Everybody can see it. That’s what I’m talking about. To me, the ultimate value your giving is not the fear. It’s the step difference between “I am not good at this” to “Oh my god, they can see I have a beautiful baby.” To me, it’s that emotion that you need to capture and you need to be able to articulate and help people see it’s the transformation you’re making for people.
Erika: the second-to-last woman, she did hug me. She’s like, “I’ve been looking for you my whole life.” She just kept freaking out and telling me I was like the best thing on planet Earth, whereas sometimes it’s just, you feel the energy. There is this, the belief system, it’s like a spirit or something, just lifts from their body like, “I don’t suck at photography. I just didn’t have the right tools.”
“I don’t suck at photography. I just didn’t have the right tools.”Erika Dufour, recounting a customer
Inside the method: interviews, behavior, and the switch
Chris: So what do you do in the interviews? Is this somebody that comes in and you’re just asking them the story of how they got there, or have you actually gone out and said, “Hey, can I call you after the fact?”
Chris: I think the important thing is, we always, our dream, Bob and I, is that you sit and you do the timeline and the whole bit, but it’s, if you take one tenth of that and just chat with people about how they’re buying it, it’s better than assuming.
Erika: Yeah, and I’ve noticed, like, watching their behavior. When they come in, when I talk to them on the phone, how many billions of questions they ask me, like, “Are you going to set the exposure?”
Erika: Yeah, watching their behavior, and then watching their behavior after is testament to what you’re talking about. That’s like the timeline. It’s not them switching to me, but it’s the switch that happens, the before and after.
Chris: It’s their level of commitment, yeah.
There is a catalog of actual interviews along with analysis available here.
Concept · The Switch Interview
Erika ran her own interviews and it changed the business
Erika attended a Switch Workshop, then interviewed her own customers and watched their behavior before and after the shoot. That is the Switch Interview at work: reconstructing the real story of how someone moved from doing it themselves to wanting a better solution, so you can hear the push, the anxiety, and the moment they switched. You do not need a perfect coding pass. As Chris says, even one tenth of the method beats assuming.
Finding the real buyer: designers, Shopify, and where people already are
Jason: It’s not these owners, but the web designers who, a company hires them to do a site, and the designer needs photographs to put up on the site. If the designer gets a commission, for example, for selling their customer on Snip Snap Go, then you might have a whole army of people selling your products.
Jason: So maybe you don’t even have to sell the owner. The owner is just someone who makes a thing. They need a website, so they’re asking someone to do a website for them, and then pitch to people who make the websites.
Chris: There’s two things. I just launched a Shopify site. It took me three weeks to start, because the first thing they asked me . . . The first thing, create your name. I know everything about this thing that I’m creating except the name. I can’t go on to the next step, and I can’t . . . In the end, I don’t have photos, this now, we’re getting into a theoretical space, but I don’t photos, so I don’t launch, maybe ever, maybe for months while I hire a photographer. It’s like, Shopify.com, get people in, get the photos, and start charging them fees off of every transaction, which is the name of your game anyway. That’s huge.
Jason: Actually, you know that bead store? There’s a bead store on Damon, by your dance thing. I think they’re still there. That’d be a great partner as well, because people who go there and buy beads to make jewelry, and you should have your card there. You should have a little demo there. You should have something there, or the first Friday of every month, you should just set up…
Jason: Be there. Be where those people are already buying something, and let them not miss you on the way out.
Why bad product photos persist: it really is the anxiety
Bob: Well, I’ll say this. As I look for a car, right, I use cars.com. Oh my gosh, it’s like okay. The photography’s bad. I can’t even look at the [inaudible 54:19].
Chris: That gets back to what you’re talking about, is like, somebody’s spending the time to design this and build this, then you took the crummiest photo that you could.
Erika: That’s what I want to know. Why does that happen? They have, obviously, they have money, right? Why is it bad?
Jason: It’s awareness.
Erika: Why is that particular photo . . . why is that the only thing people don’t spend money on?
Chris: The even funnier part is, the opposite side is, it’s such an awareness when they do it. I mean, the girls that started Gilt.com have chapters about how they have this huge business decision to make, in their book, about, “Do we use the crummy stock photography that the people that manufacture the products already have, or do we bring in high-end models and shoot these things or whatever? The whole business is built just on the photos, where people have such a hard time clawing their way to it. It’s just they want to dismiss it and get it over with.
Erika: Yeah. It’s like going to the dentist.
Chris: It is. I believe it is that anxiety.
Bob: The cool part is, again, you came to the switch, you heard some of the things, you found the emotion, you found the fear, you found all those things, and then from that, you’ve been able to kind of help perpetuate your business based on seeing and interviewing and talking to people. That’s fabulous.
Chris: Awesome. Thanks for sharing and letting us talk about it.
Erika: Yeah.