Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

by Geoffrey A. Moore

Neither of these actions resolves itself readily into a checklist of activities, but there are four key principles to guide us: 1. The prime goal is to secure access to a customer-oriented distribution channel. This is the channel you predict that mainstream pragmatist customers would expect and want to buy your product from. 2. The type of channel you select for long-term servicing of the market is a function of the price point of the product. If this is not direct sales, however, then during the transition period of crossing the chasm, you may need to adopt a supplementary or even an alternative channel—one oriented toward demand creation—to stimulate early acceptance in the mainstream. 3. Price in the mainstream market carries a message, one that can make your product easier—or harder—to sell. Since the only acceptable message is one of market leadership, your price needs to convey that, which makes it a function of the pricing of comparable products in your identified competitive set. 4. Finally, you must remember that margins are the channel’s reward. Since crossing the chasm puts extra pressure on the channel, and since you are often trying to leverage the equity the channel has in its existing relationships with pragmatist customers, you should pay a premium margin to the channel during the chasm period.