Book of the Week: Crossing the Chasm

23 Feb 2013

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore is one of those books that gets recommended to young entrepreneurs. This is another book with two parts. The first part describes what the Chasm is and the second part is how to cross it. The book was first published in 1991 and subsequently revised after that. My version was revised in 1999, because the examples were dated. The book should be overdue for another revision, but the internet has changed things quite a bit. It would be a waste of time to revise this book again. I found myself skipping over sections of examples. Not worth my time to read examples if I already agree with the statement. The main premise is that there are different types of customers which adopt your products are different stages. In the beginning there are early adopters, which are different from the mainstream. The way to get the mainstream is to have social proof from others in the mainstream. This is a chicken and the egg problem, which can be solved by segmenting the mainstream market and targeting a niche to takeover. Then adoption will spread from the niche. Early adopters don’t help with the mainstream since their requirements are different. I can see the influence from this book on customer development in the Start Up Owner’s Manual. If I had a product that I sold in return for money, I’d probably hit the chasm. With an internet company, I’m no so sure the same rules apply. The end of the book said growth was more like a stairs than a hockey stick. That is probably closer to the truth. Each new market segment is stair step. Lesson Learned: Don’t go after the whole pie in beginning. Cut yourself a slice first. Eat it, then go back for some more. Purchase Crossing the Chasm on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.