The Three Sources of Energy
Every purchase draws on functional, emotional, and social energy, not just utility.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
For someone to act there must be energy in the system, and it comes from three sources: functional (time, space, effort, knowledge), emotional (how I feel), and social (how others perceive me). Reading all three explains why 'more money,' 'faster,' or 'better' rarely mean what they literally say, and prevents building a product that solves only the functional layer.
Origin
Part of Bob Moesta's JTBD method; he uses it to decode the hiring and firing criteria uncovered in switch interviews.
Core principles
- 01Functional energy is time, space, effort and knowledge.
- 02Emotional energy is how the person wants to feel (better, less frustrated, less overlooked).
- 03Social energy is how others perceive them or how they want to be perceived.
- 04Stated criteria hide deeper drivers: 'money' can really mean respect, responsibility or status.
- 05Value depends on where the customer starts, not only where they end; overshooting the desired endpoint invites price resistance.
How to run it
- 1
Map the functional load
Identify the concrete time, effort, knowledge and space costs the customer is trying to reduce.
- 2
Name the emotional charge
Capture how the customer wants to feel and what current feeling (frustration, inadequacy, being overlooked) is driving them.
- 3
Read the social dimension
Uncover how the person wants to be seen by others, which often silently governs the decision.
Pro tip Unpack loaded words: ask why they need 'more money' and you'll hit respect or status.
- 4
Anchor value to the starting point
Set the offer to the customer's actual desired distance of progress, not the maximum outcome you can deliver.
Watch out Overshooting the outcome makes buyers want a discount because you gave them more than they wanted.
In the wild
Studying why people switch employers, Moesta found over half who took new jobs didn't get more money; when 'money' did appear, unpacking it revealed a desire for respect, responsibility, status or a title.
→ The real driver was progress (skills, being around smarter people to become a founder), not the literal paycheck.
Common mistakes
Solving only the functional layer
Optimizing time and effort while ignoring emotional and social energy misses the real reasons people act and leaves the product feeling hollow.
Taking stated criteria literally
Reading 'money' or 'faster' at face value, without unpacking them, leads to solving the wrong problem.
Is it for you?
Best for
Researchers and marketers translating raw interview data into the true hiring and firing criteria.
Not ideal for
Pure commodity contexts where social and emotional signals are genuinely absent from the decision.
From the transcript
“there's what I call functional energy which is usually time space effort knowledge right there's emotional energy which is how I feel”
“there's social aspects how I want others to perceive me or how others perceive me”
“over 50% of the people who got new jobs didn't get more money it's a lie”
“money actually has a bigger effect that than just money it's about respect or it's about you know responsibility”
From the episode
The ultimate guide to JTBD
Bob Moesta (co-creator of the framework)