Adoption Life Cycle

Bell Curve of adopters/buyers of new technology, based on where in the technology's Life Cycle they hop on board, etc.

1. Innovator-s: want to be first, but want everything cheap (Innovation)

2. Early Adopters/visionaries: chasing a business opportunity dream; least price-sensitive, but can be very hard to please and will push for never-ending project-oriented customization, which takes resources away from focusing on a package-able Whole Product/Franchise for a single well-defined market.

3. Early Majority/Pragmatists: typically industry-focused (earlier niches often communicate across industries); want to buy from market leader to ensure ecology of Whole Product enhancements from third parties.

4. Late Majority

5. Laggards

Geoffrey Moore says there's a crack between each of these segments, but the crack between 2 and 3 is a chasm. So he wrote a book about Crossing The Chasm.

May'2008: Seth Godin calls this the Passion/Pop Gulf. He notes

• you can chose not to bother Crossing The Chasm, and make your business succeed in the smaller Passion Market Segment

• to move to the higher curve, you're going to have to leave your Passion customers behind.