The D-Day Analogy

Target The Attack The first thing we are going to do is target a very specific niche where we can dominate from the very beginning of the plan. Why? Because as a startup or new company you are unlikely to have the resources to take on the incumbent in the Early Majority directly. The challenge in this case is that you won't have any hard and fast data on which niche you should start with, so you'll need to use what Moore calls "informed intuition." You'll build out personas of your potential target customers, and run them through scenarios to see which niche looks the most promising.

Assemble an Invasion Force This next step requires us to create a "whole product" that provides a solution to the customer's problems in their entirety. This is because Early Adopters are happy to stitch together different pieces to solve their problem, but an Early Majority user will likely not. There are four categories of "product" that you need to keep in mind as you work through this step: - Generic product: this is the product you deliver out of the box and what is covered in your contract with the buyer; - Expected product: this is what the customer thought she was buying when she bought the generic product; - Augmented product: this is the product fleshed out to provide the maximum chance of achieving the buying objective; - Potential product: this is the product's room for growth. At this point our focus is on the minimum commitment to the whole product required to cross the chasm, which will likely require you to solve the customer's needs. In order to do that, you'll likely need to form alliances or partnerships with other companies that can help you round out your solution.

Define The Battle One of the biggest challenges in winning over the Early Majority is that they want to be able to choose among a set of vendors with similar value propositions. They want competition for their dollars. However, if you've done your work in creating a new and compelling value proposition, you might not have any competition. So, your task in this step is to define the battle ground so that you have the best chance of winning. In order to do that we have do two things. First, we need to lead with market-centric attributes instead of product-centric attributes. Here are some examples to make this point clear. Product-centric attributes: fastest product, easiest to use, elegant architecture, product price, unique functionality. Market-centric attributes: largest installed base, most third party suppliers, de facto standard, cost of ownership, quality of support. Second, the product-centric attributes need to be clearly positioned against your competition. We don't have enough time to review everything the book says about positioning here, but you can refer to our summary on the seminal book Positioning to get a clear picture. For now, here's what the end result of your positioning should sound like: For (target customers - the beachhead segment only), who are dissatisfied with (the current market alternative), our product is a (new product category), that provides (key problem-solving capability), unlike (the product alternative), we have assembled (key whole product features for your specific application).

Launch the invasion Like @14754 says, "the number one objective when crossing the chasm is to secure a channel into the mainstream market with which the pragmatist customer will be comfortable." The last two things we need to cover in order to make that a reality is distribution and pricing. The long term distribution channel you pick will ultimately be a function of price of the product, and you should choose the most efficient channel for your offer. However, the channel you pick in the short-term should be one from which Early Majority customers are comfortable buying from. In a B2B environment, usually this means a direct sales force. The price of your product sends a message to Early Adopters, and the price they'll be looking for is that of market leadership. Thus, your price should be a function of the pricing of the comparison set your customers are likely to choose from.