Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Summary)
Why do so many hot tech startups, loved by early adopters and praised by critics, suddenly crash and burn? It's not because their product is bad. It's because they fall into 'the chasm'—a deadly gap between the visionary first customers and the pragmatic majority, where the marketing strategies that once made you successful become your biggest liability.
Your First Fans Aren't Your Real Market
There is a vast, dangerous gap between the Early Adopters (visionaries who love new tech for its own sake) and the Early Majority (pragmatists who want a proven, whole solution). Marketing to the latter group with the same message that won the former is a recipe for failure.
In the early 1990s, pen-based computers from companies like GO Corporation were a media sensation and a darling of tech enthusiasts. But they failed spectacularly because they never convinced the mainstream business user, who didn't want a futuristic gadget but a reliable tool that solved a complete problem. They fell directly into the chasm.
To Get Big, You Must First Go Small
To cross the chasm, you cannot attack the entire mainstream market at once. You must focus all your company's resources on dominating a single, specific niche market—a 'beachhead'—to build a reputation and a base for future expansion.
Salesforce didn't initially try to sell its CRM to every company on Earth. They laser-focused on small-to-medium-sized sales teams who were frustrated by the complexity and cost of giant enterprise software. By becoming the undisputed king of that specific hill, they established the momentum needed to storm the rest of the market.
Pragmatists Don't Buy Products; They Buy Solutions
Early adopters will happily piece together a solution, but the mainstream market wants a 'whole product'—your core offering plus everything else required to get value from it, such as support, integrations, training, and standards.
The Apple II computer was a hit with hobbyists, but the IBM PC crossed the chasm because it offered a 'whole product.' It had the trusted IBM brand, a vast software library like Lotus 1-2-3, and a network of dealers for support. This complete, safe package gave the pragmatic majority the confidence to buy.
Create Your Competition to Define Your Market
To help pragmatic buyers make a decision, you must frame their choice clearly. This means positioning your disruptive product against a well-known market leader (the 'Market Alternative') and the old, inefficient way of doing things (the 'Product Alternative').
When Oracle was crossing the chasm with its relational database, it positioned itself against IBM, the established market leader. Their message was simple: you can stick with IBM's old, hierarchical databases (the Product Alternative) or go with the market leader in the new world, IBM (the Market Alternative). But if you want the best of the new technology, you choose us, Oracle. This gave buyers a simple, compelling framework for a complex decision.
