Crossing the Chasm

A critical key to startup scale is crossing the chasm of adoption across user groups. Growing and marketing a technology company is different than other industries. New technology often is misunderstood, mischaracterized, or simply too technical for most people to understand. How do you grow a technology business like Salesforce or YouTube?

What does crossing the chasm even mean?

Crossing the Chasm discusses the notion of hockey stick growth. The idea is that this is a misrepresentation of how technology companies actually grow. There are distinct buying personas and moving from one group to the other is not so simple. There is a “chasm” or gap between each buying group that requires careful planning and flawless execution to overcome.

The distinct buyer personas are:

1. Innovators or Technology Enthusiasts
2. Early Adopters or Visionaries
3. Early Majority or Pragmatists
4. Late Majority or Conservatives
5. Laggards

Each group requires different levels of support, messaging, and are making purchasing decisions for different reasons.

The first two groups care most about the technology and what the future will look like with it. These innovators and early adopters communicate with each other. Thus they are able to support you as you move from each distinct buying group to the next.

The chasm really exists between the early adopters and the early majority. This is the biggest challenge for the success of a technology company. The early market cares about the technology itself. While the early majority cares mostly about gaining a competitive advantage as a result of the technology. The early majority cares less about the technology and more about the business problems that your solution can solve. Bridging this divide is crucial to the success of any technology company.

How does crossing the chasm apply to my business?

There are nuances to crossing the chasm that differ if you are a consumer or a business technology company. B2B technology companies are the primary target but there are obvious overlaps for B2C technology companies. Moore addresses consumer-focused tech companies in more detail in the appendix.

I encourage anyone in technology to read this book. It clearly breaks down different market segments and how companies must change as they tackle these segments. You’ll notice the buyer profiles of your customers and how your organization is adapting at each stage.

Another reason to read Crossing the Chasm is that Gartner, one of the largest analyst advisory firms (I’m sure amongst others) utilize this methodology with their clients.

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