Why great tech products die in "the chasm"

In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore maps how new technology spreads through five groups: innovators, early adopters, the early majority, the late majority, and laggards. Most people assume adoption is a smooth ramp from one group to the next. Moore's uncomfortable claim is that there's a deep crack — a chasm — between the early adopters and the early majority, and this is where most promising products quietly die.

The reason is that these two groups buy for opposite reasons. Early adopters (visionaries) want a breakthrough that gives them a competitive edge, and they'll happily tolerate a rough, unfinished product to get it. The early majority (pragmatists) want the opposite: a proven, complete, low-risk solution — and they trust references from other pragmatists like them. So the very pitch that wins visionaries ("be first, gain an edge") actively repels pragmatists, who see risk where visionaries see opportunity.

Moore's counterintuitive fix is to narrow, not broaden. Instead of chasing every possible customer, pick one small, specific niche and dominate it completely — a beachhead. Becoming the obvious leader in a tiny pond gives pragmatists the peer references and "whole product" completeness they need to feel safe, which then opens the door to adjacent markets.