When Geoffrey Moore’s marketing book, Crossing the Chasm, was first published in 1991 (a revised edition came out in 2002) it quickly became a business bestseller. A major reason for its popularity was Moore’s incisive critique of the standard model for marketing high-tech products. Large investments in high-tech ventures were lost as products tried to “cross the chasm.” The chasm is the gulf between two distinct marketplaces for technology products: an early market populated by early adopters and insiders, and a mainstream market consisting of the “rest of us.”

In Crossing the Chasm, Moore set forth his revised Technology Adoption Life Cycle model. This replaced the standard model’s expectation of a smooth progression from early adopters and technology enthusiasts to mainstream customers with the expectation of a gap or chasm period of little or no growth. After analyzing the real nature of the marketing challenge, Moore detailed four tactics for crossing the chasm as quickly as possible.

Click the View button above to download a two page summary of the model (PDF format), complete with a ManyWorlds commentary that discusses the effectiveness of the model.