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

by Geoffrey A. Moore

the early majority want to buy a productivity improvement for existing operations. They are looking to minimize the discontinuity with the old ways. They want evolution, not revolution.

The company failed because its managers were unable to recognize that there is something fundamentally different between a sale to an early adopter and a sale to the early majority, even when the company name on the check reads the same.

If two people buy the same product for the same reason but have no way they could reference each other, they are not part of the same market.

High-tech marketing, therefore, begins with the techies.

One final characteristic of pragmatist buyers is that they like to see competition—in part to get costs down, in part to have the security of more than one alternative to fall back on should anything go wrong, and in part to assure themselves they are buying from a proven market leader. This last point is crucial: Pragmatists want to buy from proven market leaders because they know that third parties will design supporting products around a market-leading product.

There are two keys to success here. The first is to have thoroughly thought through the “whole solution” to a particular target end-user market’s needs, and to have provided for every element of that solution within the package.

Cross the chasm by targeting a very specific niche market where you can dominate from the outset, drive your competitors out of that market niche, and then use it as a base for broader operations.

A key lesson to learn here is that you want to target a beachhead segment that is: • Big enough to matter • Small enough to win, and a • Good fit with your crown jewels.