Crossing the Chasm Model
It’s that point early in a company’s life where things have stopped
working, when you’re desperately searching for a second wind.
Technology Adoption Life Cycle
That gap shows that those first two segments are wildly different from the
other ones, and what works with them won’t work with the rest.
They’re innovators and early adopters; a.k.a. people willing to try new
stuff, even if it’s buggy or feature-poor.
They’re a different breed from everyone else; they buy things differently,
they have different motivations, they have different budgets. These are the
people who line up at the Apple store to try the new, latest thing even
when they know the first generation will have a lot of problems. They
don’t care.
The early majority, on the other hand, is much more conservative.
HOW TO CROSS THE CHASM
Moore breaks this down into several parts.
PART 1: PICK A BEACHHEAD
Start by finding the segment in the most pain. Mainstream customers
typically want to see case studies before they buy. But if you find a
segment that has a painful problem they want to solve really badly, they
won’t care about case studies. They won’t care so much about who you
are. They just want the pain to go away.
For our innovation the segment which is in most pain is people living
areas of load shedding, who desperately are in need of alternative source
of energy in affordable cost.
PART 2: DOMINATE WITH WHOLE PRODUCT THINKING
This is about dominating the beachhead that you’ve chosen. Do it by
expanding your “Product” to solve your segment’s pain better than anyone.
When you see the word “Product” most of you are thinking about a
specific piece of technology, like an app, a piece of software.
But if you’re trying to Cross The Chasm, you have to broaden your
definition of what “Product” means.
To Cross the Chasm, you have to offer the Whole Product: not just the
technology, but the complete experience around using that technology.
Since the current innovation is applied to road blockers, it has a technical
limitation of being implemented on one way traffic only. This technology
can be further enhanced by using rollers instead of pistons in one way road
blockers. The rollers can be directly connected to electricity
generators/electric motors eliminating the cost of pistons while increasing
the productivity.
The rollers can be used on two way traffic as well, such as service roads
where usually traffic influx is relatively higher than roads. They can also
open a niche market of malls or buildings with parking facilities.