Book Description

Revised and updated, this new edition includes a special emphasis on the Internet, while showing readers how to market and sell high-tech products to mainstream customers.

Amazon.com

Author Geoffrey Moore makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. His chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers. This pattern, says Moore, is unique to the high-tech industry.

Moore suggests remedies for the problem that can help businesses meet their long-term goals. He coaches marketing professionals on how to move slowly through the gulf, teaching them to create profiles and target specific segments of the population rather than trying to plow right into the mainstream. He cites examples of successful chasm crossings by such companies as Apple, Tandem, Oracle, and Sun, showing what they all had in common and exposing the different weaknesses in their strategies. Moore also assigns responsibility for success to programmers and developers by suggesting they design a "whole product model." Here, because integration tasks are daunting to the mainstream market, all the components of a technological product must be in one package. Moore also describes strategies for competing with rival companies and assessing the best distribution channels for penetrating the target market.

Written not just for marketing specialists but for all employees whose futures ride on the success of a technical product, Crossing the Chasm delivers crucial information in an engaging, readable tone.

From the Publisher

High-Tech Marketing Expert Identifies the Greatest Challenge Facing New Ventures and Shows How to Address It

Every year, according to high-tech marketing expert Geoffrey Moore, millions of dollars invested in high-tech entrepreneurial ventures are lost trying to "cross the chasm" from early market success to mainstream market leadership. Moore, President of Geoffrey Moore Consulting, identifies and addresses the key challenges facing such ventures in the long-awaited paperback edition of Crossing the Chasm: How to Win Mainstream Markets for Technology Products

Targeted at venture capitalists, product managers, and tech marketers, Moore's book identifies a fundamental flaw in the standard high-tech marketing model, which postulates smooth sales growth through a series of well-defined, ever-larger markets. In fact, says Moore, there are really two, fundamentally separate phases in the development of any high-tech market: an early phase that builds from a few, highly visible, visionary customers; and a mainstream phase, where the buying decisions fall predominantly to pragmatists. Transitioning between these two phases is anything but smooth, and confidently assuming that success in the early market will translate into mainstream success is the fatal error that causes so many high-flying start-ups to crash into the chasm.

Crossing the Chasm grows from Moore's extensive consulting experience at Regis McKenna and at his own firm, working with hundreds of technology ventures struggling with these problems. The transition, he notes, is always perilous: typically, the new venture commits significant resources to modifications promised to secure its initial base of early market customers. The venture requires continued growth to support these commitments, growth into the lucrative mainstream markets. But these markets require a very different approach from that of the early visionaries; and if a company does not attack them properly, it will quickly fall short of projections and find itself in trouble. Moore's book presents specific strategies in marketing and all other areas of the business to help technology companies cross this critical chasm successfully.

Book Dimension
Height (mm) 207 Width (mm) 134