You’re reading hot dogs and eggs, a blog by Chris Gallo since 2014.

Situational Coffee

This post will take you about 2 minutes to read.


Customers do not have problems. They only struggle to make progress.

People buy products or services to get a job done. This is known as jobs to be theory coined by Clayton Christensen.

After reading Competing Against Luck, this theory has hit me over the head recently while consuming one of my favorite things.

Coffee.

Here are some of the different ways I have to got my fix of coffee in the past:

The latest one I’ve tried is called Cometeer. It’s marketed as flash-frozen instant coffee.

A box of frozen pods/pucks arrive on dry ice to your door. When you’re ready for a cup of coffee, you just add boiling water or add it to an iced drink.

That’s it.

It’s a simple process that eliminate several steps.

Cometeer has taught me about situation and circumstance when it comes to why you purchase or buy something.

The product is not the right choice for every scenario when I need a cup of coffee. I likely wouldn’t use several pods if I was making coffee for guests or multiple people.

But if I’m in a rush, just adding hot water to a frozen pod is progress for me. Fast progress.


It’s important to remember something that’s well designed for one situation can be a total failure in others.

You wouldn’t wear roller blades in a foot race on grass.

The context of the situation matters a lot when determing why someone purchases a product or uses a service.