crossing-the-chasm

SKILL.md

Crossing the Chasm Framework

Strategic framework for marketing and selling disruptive technology products, particularly the transition from early adopters to mainstream customers.

Core Principle

There is a chasm between early adopters and the mainstream market. Most tech companies fail not because they can't build great products, but because they can't cross from visionaries who love new technology to pragmatists who just want solutions that work. The two groups want fundamentally different things -- what wins over innovators actively repels the early majority -- so you must change your strategy, and your whole product, to cross.

If the product is modern PLG/freemium B2B SaaS, read references/b2b-saas.md first -- it remaps every step below (the chasm, beachhead, whole product, metrics) for self-serve trials, free tiers, and the false-signal trap where 1,000 free users looks like a crossing but isn't.

Scoring

Goal: 10/10. Score any tech go-to-market by the Quick Diagnostic at the end: count the rows answered "yes" and map the 7 rows onto a 0-10 scale (roughly 1.4 points per satisfied row).

9-10: single dominable beachhead chosen, 10+ in-segment references, whole product complete via partners, evolution-not-revolution positioning, pragmatist-aligned channel -- adoption is accelerating. You've crossed.

5-6: beachhead picked but whole product or references still thin, or positioning still reads "revolutionary." You're mid-chasm; ship the missing whole-product layers and case studies.

<=3: multiple beachheads (or none), visionary messaging, MVP-grade product. Classic early-market tactics aimed at the mainstream -- the most common reason to stall.

Report the score, name the failing diagnostic rows, and give the fix for each.