Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers — Geoffrey A. Moore
My short review of Geoffrey A. Moore’s “Crossing the Chasm”.
This is a book about marketing for high-tech products. More precisely, it’s about marketing high-tech products in a B2B context (and not a B2C one).
Note I read the 3rd edition of “Crossing the Chasm”. It’s been updated twice from its first edition in 1990 and this edition has been published in 2013. It uses examples of companies and products that are recent enough for me to have heard or read about (since then, some have succeeded; and others have been less lucky) – which is always nice.
When it comes to selling a high-tech product (be it hardware or software), there are five types of potential customers:
- Innovators, ready to test pretty much anything, as technology is a central interest in their life.
- Early adopters, who accept a product that is not perfect, as they are able to see the benefits of a new technology.
- Early majority, who are driven by a sense of practicality – it’s a huge part of the market and you must win their business.
- Late majority, which usually consist of people uncomfortable with technology products.
- And laggards, who don’t want anything to do with your new technology.
The thing is: convincing the two first groups of using your high-tech product is not that hard, and we know of many companies that succeeded in doing it. But there is a huge gap – the “chasm” – between those and the early adopters. This book is all about crossing that chasm.
→ 4⁄5 Even if this book is about marketing, which is not really my thing, it’s not too long and easy enough to understand. It was, overall, an interesting read.