# Crossing the Chasm

> Technology adoption lifecycle and go-to-market — an AI agent skill based on *Crossing the Chasm* by Geoffrey Moore.

Published 2026-02-19 · Updated 2026-08-17 · Strategy & Growth · Free and MIT-licensed
Canonical: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/crossing-the-chasm/
Source: https://github.com/wondelai/skills/tree/main/crossing-the-chasm

**Install:** `npx skills add wondelai/skills/crossing-the-chasm --global`

## What is the Crossing the Chasm skill?

Crossing the Chasm gives your AI agent Geoffrey Moore’s book as a field manual for the moment early-adopter momentum stops converting. It locates your product on the adoption lifecycle, picks a beachhead segment narrow enough to dominate, specifies the whole product pragmatists require, and rewrites positioning for buyers who want a solution rather than a vision.

## Key concepts from Crossing the Chasm your agent applies

- **The Technology Adoption Lifecycle** — Markets evolve through innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards.
- **The Chasm** — The dangerous gap between early adopters (who buy vision) and the early majority (who buy solutions).
- **Beachhead Segment** — Pick one narrow segment where you can win completely — dominate it before expanding.
- **Whole Product** — The early majority needs a complete solution — not just your core product, but all surrounding elements.
- **Positioning for the Mainstream** — Shift from technology-focused to market-focused positioning that speaks the pragmatist's language.

## When to use Crossing the Chasm — and when not to

Reach for it when:

- Early adopters signed enthusiastically, and the next tier of buyers keeps asking for references you can’t produce.
- Sales is chasing six verticals at once and has not won completely in any single one of them.
- Deals stall on “who else in our industry runs this?” rather than on price or missing features.
- Your pitch still leads with the technology, and cautious buyers hear risk where you hear advantage.

Reach for something else when:

- The category is crowded and you’d rather sidestep the fight — Blue Ocean Strategy redraws the competitive factors.
- Your product only works once other users show up — Cold Start Problem is built for network launches.
- You can’t yet say what you are or who you beat — Obviously Awesome settles positioning first.
- The plan you’re executing is a goal list with no diagnosis — run Good Strategy Bad Strategy first.

## About Geoffrey Moore

Silicon Valley's top go-to-market strategist for 30+ years. Geoffrey Moore is an organizational theorist and management consultant who has been a trusted advisor to leading technology companies including Salesforce, Microsoft, and Google for over three decades.

More: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Moore · https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3101094
The book: https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25648568M/Crossing_the_Chasm · https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm · https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2917233

## Example prompts

- Identify where my product is on the adoption lifecycle using crossing-the-chasm skill _(Market analysis)_
- Define a beachhead segment strategy for crossing the chasm using crossing-the-chasm skill _(Go-to-market)_
- Create a whole product plan for our target segment using crossing-the-chasm skill _(Product strategy)_
- Reposition our messaging for early majority pragmatists using crossing-the-chasm skill _(Positioning)_

## Frequently asked questions

### How do I install the Crossing the Chasm skill?

Run `npx skills add wondelai/skills/crossing-the-chasm --global`. It takes about 30 seconds and needs no account. The Crossing the Chasm skill then works in Claude, Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex, Cursor, OpenClaw and Hermes Agent — anything that reads the open agentskills.io format — and your agent loads it on its own when a task calls for it. It is free and MIT-licensed, and the source is at https://github.com/wondelai/skills.

### Which book is the Crossing the Chasm skill based on?

It packages *Crossing the Chasm* by Geoffrey Moore — silicon Valley's top go-to-market strategist for 30+ years. The skill distils the book's method into instructions your agent follows while it works, covering the technology adoption lifecycle, the chasm and beachhead segment. It sits in the Strategy & Growth part of the library.

### What is the chasm, exactly?

It is a gap in who the buyers are, not in how many. Early adopters buy a vision and accept an unfinished product as the price of a head start. The early majority buys a proven solution, wants references from companies that look like theirs, and treats going first as a risk. Your existing customer list carries almost no weight across that boundary, which is why momentum evaporates right after your best quarter.

### How is this different from the Blue Ocean Strategy skill?

Blue Ocean asks which market you should be in; Crossing the Chasm asks how to win the one you have already entered, and in what order. Blue Ocean reconstructs an industry’s competitive factors so rivals stop mattering. Moore assumes the category exists and treats your problem as sequencing — which single segment to own completely, and what has to be true before the mainstream will buy. Reach for this one when you have paying early adopters and stalled growth.

### Do I need to have read Crossing the Chasm first?

No. The skill carries the working parts: the lifecycle segments and how each buys, the criteria for scoring a beachhead, the whole-product checklist, and the language shift that mainstream buyers respond to. What the book adds is the target-customer characterization work and the long worked examples that teach you to recognise a stalling market before the numbers say so. The page links the current edition if you want it.

### Does this apply outside enterprise technology?

It fits best where buying is considered, referenced, and risky — enterprise software, hardware, regulated tools — because that is the world Moore built it from. The lifecycle logic still travels to consumer products with real switching costs, but beachhead selection assumes identifiable segments whose members talk to each other. If your growth comes from users attracting other users rather than from references, Cold Start Problem describes your situation better.

## Related

- All Strategy & Growth skills: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/strategy/
- Blue Ocean Strategy: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/blue-ocean-strategy/
- Cold Start Problem: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/cold-start-problem/
- Good Strategy Bad Strategy: https://skills.wondel.ai/skills/good-strategy-bad-strategy/