Crossing the Chasm audiobook cover - Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Crossing the Chasm

Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Geoffrey A. Moore

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EntrepreneurshipMarketing & Sales

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Crossing the Chasm
Technology Adoption Life Cycle+
The Chasm+
The Whole Product+
The Beachhead Strategy+
Choosing the First Niche+
Product Positioning+
Distribution & Pricing+
Consumer vs. B2B Markets+
Post-Chasm Organization+

Quiz — Test Your Understanding

Question 1 of 8
Which two customer groups make up the 'early market' in the Technology Adoption Life Cycle?
  • A. Pragmatists and Conservatives
  • B. Technology Enthusiasts and Visionaries
  • C. Visionaries and Pragmatists
  • D. Conservatives and Skeptics
Question 2 of 8
What is the fundamental cause of the 'chasm' that exists between the early market and the mainstream market?
  • A. Visionaries seek incremental productivity improvements, while pragmatists want to provoke major, disruptive changes.
  • B. Pragmatists are highly suspicious of high-tech and refuse to adopt any new technology, regardless of its benefits.
  • C. Visionaries champion major changes, while pragmatists want minimal discontinuity and demand references from established vendors.
  • D. The early market is too large to fully satisfy, leaving companies with no resources to address the needs of the mainstream market.
Question 3 of 8
What does the text mean by a 'whole product'?
  • A. A product that completely satisfies a customer's buying objectives, including necessary support, installation, and additional components.
  • B. A generic product that is manufactured entirely in-house without relying on third-party partnerships or alliances.
  • C. A physical hardware product, as opposed to a digital software service or application.
  • D. A product that has been tested enough to be completely free of bugs and faulty features.
Question 4 of 8
Why is it crucial for a company to focus exclusively on a single target niche when attempting to cross the chasm?
  • A. It allows the company to avoid the costly process of developing a whole product.
  • B. It makes it easier to win the majority of orders, become the undisputed market leader, and generate positive word-of-mouth.
  • C. It ensures the company remains under the radar of larger, established competitors.
  • D. It allows the company to charge premium prices to technology enthusiasts indefinitely.
Question 5 of 8
When positioning a product for pragmatists, how should a newcomer demonstrate market leadership if they don't yet have direct competitors?
  • A. By highlighting the product's technical features, such as its speed and size.
  • B. By using customer references exclusively from visionaries and technology enthusiasts.
  • C. By claiming the product is entirely unique and cannot be compared to any existing technology.
  • D. By defining the competition themselves using a traditional 'market alternative' and a technologically similar 'product alternative.'
Question 6 of 8
Which distribution channel is generally considered optimal for actively creating demand and successfully crossing the chasm?
  • A. Retail stores
  • B. The internet
  • C. Direct sales
  • D. Value-added resellers
Question 7 of 8
Why is it generally more difficult to cross the chasm in consumer markets compared to business markets?
  • A. Consumers demand much higher profit margins for distributors than businesses do.
  • B. Consumers usually lack the economic resources and a truly compelling reason (like a broken critical process) to adopt immature products.
  • C. Consumer markets do not have technology enthusiasts or early adopters to seed the initial market.
  • D. Consumer markets are entirely dominated by skeptics who refuse to provide valuable feedback on product failures.
Question 8 of 8
What major organizational shift must occur to ensure success after a company successfully emerges from the chasm?
  • A. The company must transition from relying on 'pioneers' to empowering 'settlers' who build standardized, well-documented procedures.
  • B. The company must replace its administrative staff with 'pioneers' to maintain high growth rates and avoid a 'welfare mentality.'
  • C. Management should shift its focus away from profitability to focus solely on aggressive, long-term research and development.
  • D. The company should eliminate the Whole Product Manager role to cut unnecessary administrative costs.

Crossing the Chasm — Full Chapter Overview

Crossing the Chasm Summary & Overview

Crossing the Chasm (1991) examines the market dynamics faced by innovative new products, particularly the daunting chasm that lies between early to mainstream markets.

The book provides tangible advice on how to make this difficult transition and offers real-world examples of companies that have struggled in the chasm.

Who Should Listen to Crossing the Chasm?

  • Anyone working within the high tech industry
  • Anyone trying to enter a market with an innovative product
  • Anyone interested in how high tech products are adopted

About the Author: Geoffrey A. Moore

Geoffrey A. Moore is an author, consultant and venture partner. His other bestsellers include Inside the Tornado, The Gorilla Game and Living on the Fault Line.

Crossing the Chasm is derived from the author’s work as a high technology consultant in Silicon Valley. Originally, both the author and publisher assumed the book would be of interest to a mere niche group of people and would probably only sell some 5,000 copies. In fact it became a runway hit with over 300,000 copies sold. 

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