In late Eighties, Geoffrey Moore, a technology marketer, in Silicon Valley, recognized a marketing problem in marketing/selling products to technology customers. He was using the Rogers Diffusion of Innovation model and recognized that the marketing methods that worked for Early Adopters did not appeal to Early Majority customers. He recognized the discontinuity, and called it, the Chasm, a valley of death. His thesis was that startups need to learn and figure out how to navigate through the Chasm or they will die. A case in point, in late Nineties, I developed a software product, FastR&D™ software, to enable scientists to massively speed-up R&D and quantitatively predict, in one minute or less, their product/process performance. Sales grew from $30K (1995), $120K (1996) to $250K (1997) with customers like Coca-Cola, Este Lauder, Sherwin Williams, BF Goodrich, Ferro Corporation, NOCIL and Pidilite. We practiced the same marketing techniques on a much bigger scale and failed dismally in 1998! For several years, I did not understand why. I had encountered the valley of death!

In early 2000, Geoffrey Moore published another book, Inside the Tornado, where he describes how companies that grow very rapidly, think stacked S curves, grow by essentially ignoring the customers! I remember in mid-Eighties we wanted to test Oracle database technology, a $50,000 investment, and make a decision, whether to go with Ingres or Oracle. Our nearest Oracle Salesman was 150 miles away, a mere three hour car ride. He called me and said, “Mukul, sorry, we do not have the resources to support you. I will send you a software tape and a manual, your people will have to figure out how to install, use and evaluate the software!” Ingress decided that high quality tech support is critical for long term customer satisfaction. They controlled growth, supported us, and we had a new database person already trained in Ingres, so we adopted Ingres. Oracle became a billion dollar database company by growing very rapidly with the organization operating in a tumultuous tornado (a cyclone) like fashion. Ingres did not!

In 2011, Chris Maloney, an Australian marketer, rationalized/integrated several marketing principles from Rogers (Diffusion), Moore (Crossing the Chasm), Malcom Gladwell (Tipping Point), Forrester Research(demographics and psychographics) and Robert Cialdini (Influence, The Psychology of Persuasion). Figure 4 provides a concise summary and insights for technology marketers. Maloney says “Scarcity” as an influence principle for marketing works best with Early Adopters, “Social Proof,” e.g., testimonials, case studies, is the way to go with Early Majority and Late Majority.