Review: "Crossing the Chasm" by Geoffrey A. Moore

The technology adoption challenge all businesses face

Every new, innovative product starts as a fad with no known market purpose. This new product has “great properties” to stir enthusiasm among early adopters, but it’s not enough for mainstream adoption.

Crossing the Chasm seeks to systematize a method of breaking through the visionary and early adopter phase to the greater majority.

Five customer segments (Source: Wikipedia)

What’s in a Market?

How do we define a market? Moore gives us a precise definition:

• A set of actual or potential customers

• For a given set of products or services

• Who have a common set of needs or wants

• Who reference each other when making purchasing decisions

The fourth bullet is often a missed characteristic while researching market potential. Reference is a quality of the early/late majority, as adopting new technologies in uncontested spaces exposes them to risk.

Plan of Attack

The author brilliantly compares crossing the chasm to the Allies’ assault on the beaches at Normandy during D-Day.

1. Target the point of attack. Something statistics fail to provide is creative customer characteristics that are significant and memorable. Statistics provide a target market or target segment, but it’s crucial to focus on the target customer instead. The number one rule to cross the chasm is to be…

   Big enough to matter, small enough to lead, good fit with your crown jewels¹

2. Assemble the invasion force. Start with markets that have a compelling reason to buy. Consider the “whole product,” which consists of the integrated ecosystem and the platform that may arise.

   If you want to go fast, go alone.
   If you want to go far, go with others.²

3. Define the battle. Pragmatists only make buying decisions when there are other competitors in the market. The goal of positioning a product isn’t to make it easier to sell but easier to buy.

4. Launching the invasion. Pricing is important at this stage — the goal is to motivate the distribution channel.

The Chasm

Each stage requires carefully tuned sales. Success in one segment depends on the previous's success, so momentum is built before advancing to new verticals and expanding. This is the core lesson from Moore’s work.

This book breaks down the arduous process of expanding a business into concrete stages and offers a compelling strategy to attain adoption. I’m enamored at how thoroughly considered each chapter, analogy, and story the author includes. The book is also short in length! If you want to understand the technology adoption lifecycle, Crossing the Chasm is a must-read. There’s so much value packed in 300 pages.

I hope this review was useful, albeit short. I only read six books in 2023 😅 I plan to double that in 2024. Interested in what I’m reading next? Friend me on Goodreads!

1. p. 125

2. pp. 153-154