English: Technology (or solution) adoption pro...

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have been reading the book “Crossing the Chasm” by Geoffrey A. Moore again. I highly recommend the book to anyone in a disruptive business. The book is an easy read and Section 4 sets up the stage for how to really market and sell disruptive technologies. The strategy is simple enough, the author states

The fundamental principle for crossing the chasm as to target a specific niche market as your point of attack and position all your resources on achieving the dominant leadership position in that segment. The approach is first you divide up the universe of possible customers into market segments. Then you evaluate each segment for its attractiveness. After the targets get narrowed down to a very small number, the “finalists”, then you develop estimates of such factors as the market niches’ size, their accessibility to distribution, and the degree to which they are well defended by competitors. Then you pick one and go after it. What’s so hard?

The hard is to the explanation that follows and I agree with that, the action or execution of this strategy is fraught with a low data decision i.e. you don’t know a lot of the prospects of allocating all your resources because you are not sure if this strategy is going to be successful.

Entrepreneurship is a low data decision activity. If the data is obvious and the risk are minimal, I define risk as a loose term, I think the risk is more opportunity cost ie. if you were not doing an entrepreneurial endeavor what else would you be doing and the pay off of that. It is a tough call, and I understand why many people don’t make that choice because we abhor Uncertainty. I used to but not since the financial collapse in 2008, where all my perceptions and biases and epistemological arrogance was turned in its head. Now I cherish uncertainty and randomness, and I wish that everyone gets to experience that feeling it is liberating and exhilarating.

Related articles