Crossing the Chasm

Geoffrey A. Moore’s Crossing the Chasm is a strategic roadmap for technology companies attempting to turn early enthusiasm into widespread commercial adoption. The book explores why many breakthrough innovations experience explosive excitement in the beginning but fail to sustain growth once they move beyond early adopters. Moore highlights that between the pioneering customer base and the mainstream market lies a dangerous gap often large enough to collapse promising ventures. His core premise is that achieving success depends on recognizing how expectations, motivations, and buying behavior differ dramatically across customer segments and adjusting strategy accordingly.

Moore explains that new technologies almost always follow a recognizable adoption pattern, known as the Technology Adoption Life Cycle. While this model is widely accepted across the business world, he argues that it contains a subtle but critical discontinuity: the transition point between early adopters and the early majority. Many businesses mistakenly assume that enthusiasm will naturally expand outward from innovators to the bulk of the market, but the early majority holds entirely different priorities. If a company treats them the same way, momentum stalls, sales slow, and investor confidence evaporates. The book is a guide for bridging this gulf deliberately rather than relying on luck.

Examining the Technology Adoption Life Cycle

Moore’s narrative begins with a breakdown of the five consumer groups that adopt new technology in sequential waves. Each group possesses a unique relationship with innovation, defined by their tolerance for risk and expectations of value.

The first group is the Innovators, individuals who passionately pursue emerging technology for its own sake. They relish experimentation, accept imperfections, and derive satisfaction purely from novelty. They are small in number but essential because they validate technical feasibility and offer constructive feedback.

Next come the Early Adopters, who share the excitement for originality but focus their attention on strategic advantage rather than experimentation. These buyers are visionaries who believe new technology can create dramatic business breakthroughs. They are willing to tolerate flaws and uncertainty if it means outperforming competitors.

After them come the Early Majority, the largest group and the most influential for commercial scale. These pragmatic customers will only invest once a solution has been proven reliable and established in their industry. They look for proven results, recognizable references, and comprehensive solutions—not experimental prototypes.

After this group is the Late Majority, made up of skeptics who adopt innovations only when not adopting becomes painful. They prefer stability and are uncomfortable with change.

Finally there are Laggards, who resist new technology entirely and may never adopt it.

Moore emphasizes that the biggest challenge lies between the early adopters and the early majority—a sharp discontinuity he calls the Chasm. While the first two groups tolerate risk and incompleteness, the early majority demands predictable outcomes and reliable infrastructure. They expect the product to function without heroics, customization, or trial-and-error integration. Their expectations cannot be met through the same strategies used to attract early adopters. Companies often assume momentum will build naturally, but buyers on each side of the gulf trust different types of evidence and look for different ...