Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey Moore
CROSSING THE CHASM
• This is the key to Crossing the Chasm. The chasm represents the gulf
between two distinct marketplaces for technology products
• the first, an early market dominated by early adopters and insiders
who are quick to appreciate the nature and benefits of the new
development
• the second a mainstream market rep resenting "the rest of us,"
people who want the benefits of new technology but who do not
want to "experience" it in all its gory details.
MARKETING
• marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward
creating relationship.
• This is what we mean when we talk about "owning a market."
Customers do not like to be "owned," if that implies lack of choice or
freedom.
• hey do like to be "owned" if what that means is a vendor taking
ongoing responsibility for the suc cess of their joint ventures.
ADVERTISING
• Advertising, as a medium of commu nication, could not sustain the
kind of relationship that was needed for ongoing success.
• First, the manipulativeness of advertising, its credibility as a means of
communication deteriorated
• Second, it is a one-way mechanism of communication. As the
emphasis shifts more and more from selling product to creating
relationship
• the goal being to communicate rather than to manipulate, the
mechanism being dialogue, not monologue
DISCONTINUED INNOVATION
• any time we are introduced to products that require us to change our
current mode of behavior or to modify other products and services
we rely on, e.g HD TV, iPhone
• In all these cases, the innovation demands significant changes by not
only the consumer but also the infra structure. That is how and why
such innovations come to be called discontinuous.
HIGH TECH MARKETING MODEL
 INNOVATORS
Technology Enthusiast
INNOVATOR
THE FIRST LITMUS TEST!

Primary Motivation
- Learn about new tech for their own sake

Key Characteristics
- Strong Aptitude for technical information
- Like to alpha test new products
- Can ignore missing elements
- Like to demonstrate their own expertise

Challenges
- Want unrestricted access to technical people
- Want no profit pricing a.k.a FREE
EARLY ADOPTERS
Visionaries
VISIONARIES
CAN GET YOU INTO THE MARKET!

Primary Motivation
- Gain dramatic competitive advantage via revolutionary breakthrough

Key Characteristics
- Great imagination for strategic application
- Attracted by High Risk High Reward propositions
- Will commit to supply the missing element
- Perceive order in magnitude gains- not price sensitive

Challenges
- Want rapid time to market
- Demand high degree of customization and support
EARLY MAJORITY
Pragmatists
PRAGMATISTS
WHERE THE VOLUMES COMES FROM

Primary Motivation
- Gain productive improvement via evolutionary change

Key Characteristics
- Astute managers of mission critical applications
- Understand real world issues and trade off
- Focus on proven applications
- Like to go with the market leader

Challenges
- Insists on good reference from trusted colleagues
- Want to see the solution in production on reference site
LATE MAJORITY
Conservatives
LAGGARDS
Skeptics
HIGH TECH MARKETING MODEL
 LATE MARKET
PRODUCT  PLATFORM

CHASM
EARLY MARKET
Disruption can be played in many ways
Four Adoption Strategies

• Bespoke Projects from the experts

Go ahead of the herd for competitive advantage BHD (BIG HAIRY DEALS) not SLD (SHITTY
LITTLE DEALS)
• Proven applications from segment focused vendors
Go ahead of the herd to address a painful problem, find Pragmatists in Pain and solved
the problem. NEVER DISCOUNT!
• Next generation infrastructure for market leaders
Stick with the herd as its transitions to new infrastructure
• Evolutionary extensions from established vendors
Go after the herd for less disruption and a lower price
Disruption can be played in many ways
Four Adoption Strategies

• Bespoke Projects from the experts

Go ahead of the herd for competitive advantage BHD (BIG HAIRY DEALS) not SLD (SHITTY
LITTLE DEALS)
• Proven applications from segment focused vendors
Go ahead of the herd to address a painful problem, find Pragmatists in Pain and solved
the problem. NEVER DISCOUNT!
• Next generation infrastructure for market leaders
Stick with the herd as its transitions to new infrastructure
• Evolutionary extensions from established vendors
Go after the herd for less disruption and a lower price
 Selling in the Early Market
Initial sales dialogue
Opening
You: Breakthrough changing technology changing the rules
Cust: Can you help me do this (amazing thing)?
Middle
You: Tell me more about what you have in mind
Cust: Here is my vision
You: I think we can help here (specific parts), but we need a special project
Cust: I can get the funding
Closing
You: I can pull together a team to scope more detail
Cust: Great lets get on this right away
 Selling in the Bowling Alley
Initial sales dialogue
Opening
You: We’ve been working for this problem with some companies, is this also what you struggling
with?
Cust: O yes! Everyone is struggling with it! YOU BECOME THE TRUSTED
Middle ADVISOR; WHAT YOU HAVE TO
DO IS LISTEN, WRITE IT DOWN,
You: Here are some symptoms that we are seeing ASKING RIGHT QUESTION and
Cust: Yes that’s us, that’s not even the half of it GIVE THOUGHTFUL RESPONSES
You: Really tell me more
DON’T SELL THEM ANYTHING
Cust: Well first…. Then… and furthermore…. THEY ARE SELLING THEMSELVES
Closing
You: I can pull together a team to scope more detail DON’T TALK ABOUT THE
SOLUTION UNTIL YOU
Cust: Great lets get on this right away COMPLETELY EXHAUSTED THE
PROBLEM
Crossing the chasm: B2B Markets
Two Key Principles

Target a Beach head Customers

- Highly focused on rekindling the flame
- Niche market with intractable problem, not solvable by conventional means
- Process owner is under pressure to find solutions
- Pragmatists are willing to consider disruptive approaches

Commit to provide a whole product

- Bring all the ingredients with you
- Complete solutions to intractable problem
- Typically involves product and services from partners and allies
- Lead vendor takes responsibility for ensuring customer success
Crossing the Chasm: B2B Market
WHATS NEW? THERE IS NO CHASM?
Digital Services
- Light to deploy, focus on user experience
- The Lean start up
- MVP, rapid agile learning
- In consumer cases, leap to tornado

Critical Success Factors: The Four Gears

• Acquire
• Engage Digital B2C consists of Low
• Monetize Risk- High Data decisions
Complete opposite of the
• Enlist chasm
Deconstructing the Dynamics
The Four Gears

ENLIST ACQUIRE

MONETIZE ENGAGE
Deconstructing the Dynamics
The Performance Gears

PERFORMANCE GEAR:
THE GOOD How fast?
Performance How many?
drive revenue ACQUIRE
growth

THE BAD
Performance
makes demands
on brand’s
goodwill
PERFORMANCE GEAR:
How much? MONETIZE THE UGLY
Performance only
How Profitable?
liquidates
Brand’s good will
Deconstructing the Dynamics
The Power Gears

POWER GEAR: THE GOOD

How often? Lower cost of
How wide? ENLIST customer
acquisition

THE GOOD POWER GEAR:

Build permission ENGAGE How often?
to monetize How deep?
URL (Ubiquity now Revenue Later)
The Power Gears

• Start with Engage

• Confirm you have something people want and like
• Then move to Acquire
• Find the levers that have more leverage
• Then Enlist
• Get your most engaged consumers to evangelize your offer
• Then Monetization
• Gently ease in, don’t pull the clutch
Slowest Gear Theory
Prioritizing and Focusing

• Thesis
• Prior to tornado
• At any given any point in time
• One of the gear slow the other three
• Examples
• Bing Acquisition
• LinkedIn Engage
• Whatsapp Monetization
• Groupon Enlist
Slowest Gear Theory
Actions Required

• Identify the slowest gear

• Focus everyone on speeding it up
• Maintain attention to the other three
• You really have to be a circus performer
• Repeat every quarter until
• You reach a tipping point
• You run out of gas
HIGH TECH MARKETING MODEL
• work the curve left to right, focusing first on the irmovators, growing
that market, then moving on to the early adopters, growing that
market, and so on, to the early majority, late majority, and even to the
laggards.
• It is important to maintain momentum in order to create a
bandwagon effect that makes it natural for the next group to want to
buy in.
• What is dazzling about this concept, partic ularly to those who own
equity in a high-tech venture, is its promise of virtual monopoly over a
major new market develop ment.
First CRACK
• The first is between the innovators and the early adopters. It is a gap
that occurs when a hot technology product cannot be readily
translated into a major new benefit
• Key to winning over this segment is to show that the new technol ogy
enables some strategic leap forward, something never before
possible, which has an intrinsic value and appeal to the
nontechnologist.
SECOND CRACK
• There is another crack in the bell curve, of approximately equal
magnitude, that falls between the early majority and the late
majority.
• The key issue now, transitioning from the early to the late majority,
has to do with demands on the end user to be technologically
competent.
THE CHASM-EARLY ADOPTER
• the real news is the deep and dividing chasm that separates the early
adopters from the early majority.
• What the early adopter is buying is some kind of change agent. By
being the first to implement this change in their industry, the early
adopters expect to get a jump on the competition.
• They expect a radical discontinuity between the old ways and the
new, and they are prepared to champion this cause against
entrenched re sistance.
• Being the first, they also are prepared to bear with the inevitable bugs
and glitches that accompany any innovation just coming to market.
THE CHASM-EARLY MAJORITY
• 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.
• By the time they adopt it, they want it to work properly and to
integrate appropriately with their existing technology base.
THE CHASM
• Because of these incompatibilities, early adopters do not make good
references for the early majority. And because of the early majority's
concern not to disrupt their organizations, good references are
critical to their buying decisions.
• The only suitable reference for an early majority customer, it turns
out, is another member of the early majority, but no up standing
member of the early majority will buy without first having consulted
with several suitable references.
FILL THE GAP BY DEPLOYING THE INVASION
FORCE IN ONE MARKET NICHE
Bowling Pin Effect
• Sell your first customer, and make it VERY SUCCESSFUL.
• Then the customer will introduce you to another customer in their
segment
• You have to stay in the market and serve enough customer until the
rest come to you voluntarily
• Cost to sale goes to ZERO and Negotiating power goes to the moon.
SEGMENT FOCUS
• Just ONE market niche, you can’t take Berlin if you haven’t taken
Normandy
• Which segment to target first?
TARGET THE POINT OF ATTACK
• Market Information
• Developing scenarios for all niches target
• Analyze it on the
• Most compelling reasons to buy
• Current competition
• Budget to meet the whole product
• Target’s budget
• Support entry to other niches

Filter out and fully committed to ONE target then assemble

the invasion force
ASSEMBLE THE INVASION FORCE

- Focus on what
you’re good at

- Select and create

strong PATNERSHIP

- Early majority see

partnership as a
sign of
Trustworthiness
POSITIONING THE PRODUCT
• Define the battle
• Creating competition
Creating Competition
• Product Alternative
• That is similar to our own, we will acknowledge our technology but
differentiate from them by virtue of our niche market focus
• Market Alternative
• A company that target customer has been buying from for years our product
will address a problematic limitation in their offer
LAUNCH THE INVASION
• For The Visionaries
We have to prove that our product was the best option for the strategic
advantage their trying to achieve
• For The Pragmatists
We have to proof our product has great support and can be used
without any risk with their business

For Both; WE ARE THE BEST SOLUTION ON THE MARKET