Jordan Ogren

May 16, 2021

Weekly Book Review <> Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore

📚 Weekly Book Review

Crossing the Chasm by Geoffrey A. Moore <> 8.7/10

Book-Cover-Crossing.jpg


{TL;DR}
For innovative technology (and businesses) to succeed, they need to transition from an early market dominated by a few visionary customers to a mainstream market dominated by a large block of customers who are predominantly pragmatists in orientation.
⚡️

Is your business where you want it to be?

If it’s not, it could be because your sales-focused—Your goal is mainly around getting a sale, no matter how it comes.

The greatest companies take a different approach.

They are market-focused. They either position themselves well in a market or create the market they will play in.

This is how you exponentially grow your business—it’s how you cross the chasm and reach the majority of the market.

This book contains everything you need to take your business, whether SaaS or not, to the next level.

3️⃣ main takeaways from the book:

1 < The key to crossing the chasm (expanding your business) is to target a specific niche market >

When targeting this specific niche, make sure of these three things:
  1. Big enough to matter
  2. Small enough to win, and a
  3. Good fit with your crown jewels (Differentiation)

2 < Creating your competition is important to allow the market to locate your company’s unique value proposition >

When creating the competition, use two types of competitors:
  1. Market alternative: The vendor that the target customer has been buying for years.
  2. Product alternative: The company that is also harnessing the same disruptive innovation/product you have and is positioning itself like you are (as leaders)

3 < 4 fundamental stages in the positioning process to get the majority to buy from you >

  1. Name it and frame it: Potential buyers can’t buy what they can’t name.
  2. Who for and what for: customers will not buy something until they know who it going to use it in for what purpose.
  3. Competition and differentiation: To know what to expect, customers need to place it in some sort of comparative context.
  4. Financials and futures: Customers do not want to buy from a company without staying power that may not be around or able to invest in the product in the future.

2️⃣ Quotes:

1 < “The fundamental principle for crossing the chasm is to target a specific niche market as your point of attack and focus all your resources on achieving dominant leadership position in that segment as quickly as possible.” >

2 < "Winning over one or two customers in each of five or ten different segments—the consequences of taking a sales-driven approach—will create no word-of-mouth effect.” >

1️⃣ Question:

1 < Are you taking a sales-driven or market-driven approach in trying to grow your business? >

🧠 // JO