The Technology Adoption Curve

Most Product Managers know the standard Bell Curve of adoption:

1. Innovators (2.5%): Tech enthusiasts who try code on GitHub just for fun.
2. Early Adopters (13.5%): Visionaries looking for a competitive advantage.
3. Early Majority (34%): Pragmatists looking for a solution to a problem.
4. Late Majority (34%): Conservatives who buy only when forced.
5. Laggards (16%): Skeptics (User who still buy CDs).

We assume this is a smooth curve. You slide from one group to the next. Geoffrey Moore pointed out that it is not smooth. There is a massive crack—a Chasm—between the Early Adopters and the Early Majority.

The Psychology Gap

The reason companies fall into the Chasm is that they don’t realize the psychology of the two groups is opposite.

Group A: The Early Adopters (The Visionaries)

• Motivation: They want a revolution. They want to disrupt their industry.
• Buying Criteria: Speed, novelty, “cool factor.”
• Tolerance: High. They will fix your bugs for you.
• Reference: They listen to other visionaries.

Group B: The Early Majority (The Pragmatists)

• Motivation: They want an evolution. They want to fix a specific headache with zero risk.
• Buying Criteria: Reliability, support, references from established companies.
• Tolerance: Zero. If it breaks, they sue you or fire you.
• Reference: They listen to other pragmatists.

The Trap: When you try to sell to the Majority using the same pitch you used for the Visionaries (“Change the world!”), the Majority thinks you are risky and crazy. They don’t want to change the world; they want to go home at 5 PM.

The “Bowling Pin” Strategy

How do you cross the Chasm? You cannot attack the whole market at once. The Majority is too suspicious.

You must use the Bowling Pin Strategy. You must target a tiny, specific niche within the Majority and dominate it so completely that you become the “Safe Choice” for that niche.

Example: Facebook

• Early Adopters: Harvard Students.
• The Chasm Strategy: They didn’t open to “The World.” They opened to Ivy League Colleges.
• The Majority: Once they dominated colleges, they moved to High Schools. Then Corporates. Then Everyone.

If Facebook had launched to “Everyone” on Day 1, it likely would have failed (like Google+). It crossed the Chasm one specific niche at a time.

The Product Pivot

Crossing the Chasm often requires a painful product pivot.

• You stop building cool “beta features.”
• You start building boring “enterprise features” (SSO, Compliance, Documentation, Support).
• The Early Adopters will hate this. They will say you “sold out.” Let them go. You are building for the Majority now.

Conclusion

Don’t let your early success blind you. The first 1,000 users validate your technology. The next 10,000 validate your business. To get the 10,000, you have to stop being exciting and start being reliable.