I had read the phrase "crossing the chasm" at way too many blogs/books/articles. I had also come to know that the "chasm" actually means...the break in the bell curve depicting the type of market captured by a company. Perhaps I didn't expect "crossing the chasm" to have any greater or in depth meaning than what I had grasped through the ultra-simplified definition of it (as aforementioned).

That's why though this book was on my "To Read" list for a long time, I was postponing it. Recently I got the time to read through this book and found it a superb read. It is perhaps the best business book that I have read yet. Actually its a book on strategy for technology companies...as to how a company starts with some superb R&D innovation and somehow converting it into a product for customers to buy.

What Geoffrey Moore argues is that any amount of R&D put into a product, can only attract a small section of a potentially huge market. And from making the success story much much bigger, you need to cater to the needs of the bulk of the market and not just the early market (which primarily consists of technology enthusiasts). This is where a company needs to cross the chasm. Basically a company needs to transform from a single product company, to a company that makes a product that is well integrable with many other products such that the resultant product can be easily accepted by the bulk of the customers without a lot of resistance. This is what the author calls whole product.

The first 3 chapters try to explain why the chasm exists and the psychographics of various types of customers in any market. The remaining chapters focus on crossing the chasm. It was simply a splendid read...the material being presented in a very simple and smooth fashion. The flow of the contents in the book is absolutely great.

Specially after doing a lot of marketing for UniversityHiring, for the past 2-3 months, I was able to co-relate my experiences with the book very well. And I think that I was able to better understand the concepts before of this reason. I think it is a must read for every entrepreneur! Even if a geek reads it, this book can give a convincing argument as to a claim that we hear again and again - why only having a great technology product doesn't guarantee great profits.

The only problem with the book is that the examples are a bit dated...as this book was written in early 90's.

I am eagerly looking forward to reading Moore's 2nd book - Inside the Tornado.

My Rating: 5/5

Amazon Link: Here

Fabmall Link: Here

Every once in a while I come across some post by some geek, shouting off a seemingly impossible and somewhat stupid. Here's a latest example which is at the top of Techmeme since today morning - Microsoft is Dead (by Paul Graham).

Quite often these titles and the arguments to support such flashy "link baits" are similar in content to what I used to encounter in newsgroups at IIT Kanpur. Most of such newsgroup posts were specifically targeted at Microsoft (the easiest to bash!)...being a regular newsgroup follower and a huge Microsoft fan, my initial reaction was that of anger and many a times I used to reply in the same tone in which the original message was posted by the author. And more often than not a flame thread used to start with allegations and counter allegations and with no result...and as in most heated arguments after a while none of the participating people are interested in resolving/discussing the issue; rather they are more interesting in winning. And which means letting the other one feel small.

After a while, I realized that such discussions were generally futile as most of these posts were generally an outburst to a narrow minded thinking (narrow minded as in the scope of the possible variables that constitute the issue rather than the authors intent). And I think that's the reason why when geeks comment out on this technology being dead or that that technology being dead, they don't necessarily look at the problem at the business angle at all.

Also, geeks are generally very eager to jump technology platforms and hence I feel that they don't generally have the patience to look beyond the circle of the other technology zealots with whom they mostly interact.

With Paul Graham's aforementioned post and with many other similar ones, I have seen the couple of commonalities that I have just mentioned. Actually looking back a couple of years of my sporadic blogging, I have also committed the similar "mistakes" in over excitement. But after getting involved with my new startup, I have got the time to read some business books too...and hence now I analyze a situation not sheerly on the basis of how "cool" or "boring" a technology is. Its not simply what I or someone else things about a cool new technology to make it revolutionize the world...its much much more complex than that.

Now, whenever I read an article that  contains "This would change the world..." or "XYZ is dead...", I take more care while analyzing the arguments put forward in support of the claim. I am particularly impressed by Don Dodge who seems to correct his previous articles in view of more data available. A recent example being how he stands corrected on his previous article in which he fears that newspapers and magazines are dead.