Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers (Collins Business Essentials)

The key point is that, in contrast with the technology enthusiast, a visionary focuses on value not from a system’s technology per se but rather from the strategic leap forward such technology can enable.

As we have just seen, the whole product model provides a key insight into the chasm phenomenon. The single most important difference between early markets and mainstream markets is that the former are willing to take responsibility for piecing together the whole product (in return for getting a jump on their competition), whereas the latter are not

To be sure, there is a minimum level of capitalization required. You have to be able to travel to make direct sales calls, and show up looking presentable, and you probably should have an office and a phone that is answered in a professional way. You do need to invest in early market public relations—the product launch is crucial to building early

To enter the mainstream market is an act of aggression. The companies who have already established relationships with your target customer will resent your intrusion and do everything they can to shut you out. The customers themselves will be suspicious of you as a new and untried player in their marketplace. No one wants your presence. You are an

Enthusiasts are like kindling: They help start the fire. They need to be cherished for that. The way to cherish them is to let them in on the secret, to let them play with the product and give you their feedback, and wherever appropriate, to implement the improvements they suggest and to let them know that you implemented them.

The last point is crucial. Getting closure with visionaries is next to impossible. Expectations derived from dreams simply cannot be met. This is not to devalue the dream, for without it there would be no directing force to drive progress of any sort. What is important is to celebrate continually the tangible and partial both as useful things in th

Classically, the first people to adopt any new technology are those who appreciate the technology for its own sake.

To sum up, it is the market-centric value system—supplemented (but not superseded) by the product-centric one—that must be the basis for the value profile of the target customers when crossing the chasm.

Visionaries—the customers dominating the early market’s development—are relatively price-insensitive. Seeking a strategic leap forward, with an order-of-magnitude return on investment, they are convinced that any immediate costs are insignificant when compared with the end result.