Crossing the Chasm

GEOFFREY A. MOORE

Reviewed by Todd

In the late 1950s, sociologists developed a bell-shaped curve to describe how farmers adopted new varieties of potatoes. In this initial study, five distinct groups were identified, each adopting the change at different degrees of acceptance. The new techniques were first enthusiastically embraced by a small group of leading-edge innovators, followed by a larger group of early adopters. As the innovation spread, the bulk of farmers, the early majority and late majority, changed their planting practices. Laggards were the last to commit to any change, and often did only when there was no other option. In 1962, Everett Rogers popularized and expanded this framework to broader trends of consumerism and change in his landmark book Diffusion of Innovations, and the technology sector has long used this paradigm to describe the adoption of products and services.

Geoffrey Moore published an important caveat in 1991 with Crossing the Chasm. The conventional marketing wisdom instructed companies to build momentum in each segment of the adoption curve and use that to energize the next group along the curve. Moore’s research confirmed small acceptance gaps between each of the groups, but his true insight was the discovery of a chasm between early adopters and the early majority.

With the discovery of this chasm, Moore was finally able to explain the difficulties many early-stage technology companies experience with this discovery. Just as start-ups feel they are gaining traction due to success in the early markets, the initial revenue growth starts to flatten and the companies start to burn through cash. Firms find themselves unable to leverage the reputation and word-of-mouth they accumulated with the early groups as they sell into the early majority because the chasm that separates the two groups is one of opposing motivations.

Customers who are early adopters approach technology as an opportunity to upstage their personal competition and bring change to the companies they work for. The early majority, in contrast, wants moderate improvements with reliable components. The early adopters want revolution; the pragmatic early majority wants evolution.

The chasm is crossed only with a D-Day–style invasion, Moore says. The potential customers in the early majority are quite satisfied with what they have. Moore implores invaders to strike at a single niche and concentrate all of their efforts on a single subset of customers. Only by creating a small beachhead in the early majority will there be the needed reference point for others in the early majority to feel comfortable in adopting a new product.

Moore is quite specific in the ways companies need to plan the attack. Niches are chosen based on the industry of an existing customer or an identifiable, inefficient operating method that can be improved. As an example of the latter case, Moore introduces Silicon Graphic, a manufacturer of high-performance computing solutions which targeted Hollywood by proposing their high-end workstations as a replacement for the physical editing of film stock.

“The chasm phenomenon . . . drives all emerging high-tech enterprises to a point of crisis where they must leave the relative safety of their established early market and go out in search of a new home in the mainstream.”

Moore also believes you should build alliances and bring partners in to wage the war. Those of the early majority want compatibility with their existing purchases, plug-and-play accessories, and published how-to manuals waiting for them when they sign the check.

For those who read the original 1991 edition of Crossing the Chasm, the 1999 revised paperback may be worth a second read. Moore rewrote most of the anecdotes and introduced a new set of companies trying to cross the chasm. But even more interesting are his descriptions of how companies use this knowledge. Some companies now piggyback on the success of others’ crossings; Moore points to Netscape’s successful chasm crossing and Microsoft’s follow-up in the Internet browser market. He even discusses companies that are building strategies to deter and foil chasm crossings.

Crossing the Chasm addresses major change events and references the experiences of many high-tech companies, so the book is laden with tech-speak and insider acronyms. I only mention it as fair warning, but in no way should that deter you. Moore’s hypothesis is about change and the naturally varying receptivity to it. I’ll bet there is some change you are trying to get adopted, and there are more than a few lessons in Crossing the Chasm for change agents and the challenges you face. TS

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers, Collins, Paperback Business Essentials Edition 2006, ISBN 9780060517120

WHERE TO NEXT? Here for starting your high-tech company Here for how geeks manage their lives Here for the start of a great tech company | EVEN MORE: The Change Function by Pip Coburn; Dealing with Darwin by Geoffrey A. Moore; The Cluetrain Manifesto by Christopher Locke, Rick Levine, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger; The Long Tail by Chris Anderson