Book · ~270 pages

Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers

Geoffrey A. Moore · HarperCollins Paid Advanced

The definitive book on picking a beachhead niche and using the bowling-alley strategy to go from early adopters to mainstream. Essential reading on why focus wins.

  • Win one narrow segment completely before expanding
  • Use references from your beachhead to knock over adjacent 'pins'
  • The chasm between visionaries and pragmatists kills unfocused products
  • Focus is a survival strategy, not a limitation on ambition
Open on harpercollins.com ↗

It answers 5 questions

  1. How specific should my target customer be when I'm just starting?
  2. How do I pick which niche to go after first?
  3. Isn't picking a tiny niche going to limit how big I can get?
  4. Should I focus on one customer segment or serve everyone who'll pay?
  5. How do I find a defensible niche in a market full of big incumbents?

Read with it

  1. The author of Crossing the Chasm explaining beachhead selection in plain, modern language, the fastest way to absorb the... Lenny's Podcast / Lenny's Newsletter Podcast · ~75 min Geoffrey Moore on finding your beachhead, crossing the chasm, and dominating a market Lenny Rachitsky & Geoffrey Moore
  2. A clear, operator-written guide from a respected SaaS-analytics company on defining and using an ICP to focus scarce startup... ChartMogul Blog Article · ~12 min read Without an ideal customer profile (ICP), your growth is just guesswork ChartMogul
  3. A PM-turned-founder's playbook that treats defining the right customer and problem as a sequence of concrete hurdles, not... First Round Review Article · ~18 min read 8 Product Hurdles Every Founder Must Clear First Round Review
  4. A focused write-up of the bowling-pin / beachhead expansion strategy with real segmentation examples, useful for founders... andyetitmoves.substack.com Article · ~12 min read Market segmentation and the bowling pin strategy And Yet It Moves (Substack)
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