Book · Approx. 256 pages

Crossing the Chasm, 3rd Edition

Geoffrey A. Moore · HarperBusiness (Collins Business Essentials) Paid Intermediate

The whole worry in your question, that slicing smaller leaves too few buyers, is exactly what Moore's target customer characterization method is built to answer. His argument is that a smaller, homogeneous segment where budget already exists to buy is safer than a larger diffuse one, because word of mouth and references compound inside a tight group. Treat it as the source text behind most beachhead advice you will read elsewhere.

• Characterize a specific buyer and use case before you count the market. If you cannot name who they are and how they buy, the segment is defined wrong, not just too small.
• A segment with existing budget for your kind of product beats a bigger one you would have to educate for a year.
• Dominating one small segment creates the references and cash flow that fund the move to the next, so narrow now does not mean stuck.