What Is A Technology Adoption Curve? The Five Stages Of A Technology Adoption Life Cycle
In his book, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers, Geoffrey A. Moore highlights a model that tries to dissect and represent the stages of adoption of high-tech products.
More precisely this model goes through five stages. Each of those stages (innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggard) has a specific psychographic that makes that group ready to adopt a tech product.
Related: Business Strategy: Definition, Examples, And Case Studies
Why is the technology adoption life cycle useful?
There is a peculiar phase in the life cycle of a high-tech product that Moore calls a “chasm.” This is the phase in which a product is getting used by early adopters, but not yet by an early majority.
In that stage, there is a wide gap between those two psychographic profiles. Indeed, many startups fail because they don’t manage to have the early majority pick up where the early adopters left.
Understanding the technology adoption of a product helps you assess in which stage is a product and when the chasm is close how to fill the gap and allow the early majority to pick up the void left by the early adopters.
That void is created when the early adopters are ready to leave a product which is about to go mainstream. The market is plenty of examples of companies trying to conquer the early majority but failed in doing so, and in the process also lost the enthusiasts that made that product successful in the first place.
What are the stages of a technology adoption life cycle?
The stages of a technology adoption life cycle, it comprises five main psychographic profiles:
Innovators
Early Adopters
Early Majority
Late Majority
and Laggards
Innovators
Innovators are the first to take action and adopt a product, even though that might be buggy. Those people are willing to take the risk, and those will be the people ready to help you shape your product when that is not perfect.
As they’re in love with the innovative aspect behind it, they are ready to sustain that. This psychographic profile is all about the innovation itself. As this is sort of a hobby for them, they are ready and willing to take the risk of using something that doesn’t work perfectly, but it has great potential.
Early Adopters
Early adopters are among those people ready to try out a product at an early stage. They don’t need you to explain why they should use that innovation.
The early adopter has already researched into it, and she is passionate about the innovation behind that, however, while the innovator will adopt the high-tech product for the sake of the innovation behind it.
The early adopter will make an informed buying decision. In that stage, even though the product is only appealing to a small niche of an early adopter, it’s great and ready.
Those early adopters feel different from the early majority. And if you “betray them” they might probably leave you right away. That is where the chasm stands.
Early majority
The early majority is the psychographic profile made of people that will help you “cross the chasm.” Getting traction means making a product appealing to the early majority. Indeed, the early majority is made of more conscious consumers, that look for useful solutions but also beware of possible fads.
Late Majority
The late majority kicks in only after a product is well established, have a more skeptical approach to technological innovation and feel more comfortable in the adoption only when a product has gone mainstream.
Laggards
Laggards are the last in the technology adoption cycle. While the late majority is skeptical of technological innovation, the laggard is adverse to it.
Thus, unless there is a clear, established an advantage in using a technology those people will hardly become adopters. For some reason, which might be tied to personal or economic aspects, those people are not looking to adopt a technology.
In which psychographic profile does your customers fall into? Did you cross the chasm yet?
Other resources:
What Is a Business Model? 30 Successful Types of Business Models You Need to Know
What Is a Business Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas Explained
Marketing vs. Sales: How to Use Sales Processes to Grow Your Business
What Is Business Development? The Complete Guide To Business Development
Blitzscaling Business Model Innovation Canvas In A Nutshell
What Is a Value Proposition? Value Proposition Canvas Explained
What Is a Lean Startup Canvas? Lean Startup Canvas Explained
How to Write a One-Page Business Plan
Business Strategy: Definition, Examples, And Case Studies
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