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Product Management and the 7 Deadly Sins When Crossing the Chasm

Blog Author: Productside Marketing

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I just read an excellent article by Michael Eckhardt and the Chasm Institute about the biggest mistakes that companies make when trying to cross the Chasm. If you haven’t read Geoffrey Moore’s book, Crossing the Chasm, it’s a must-read. I won’t go into the theory behind it here (we teach it as part of the strategy section in our Optimal Product Management and Product Marketing course), but suffice it to say that it presents a time-tested strategy for getting revenues and products to volume.

The sin that struck me most was this one:

Crossing the Chasm: Target Customer Mix-Up Mistake

if you’re in the Early Market and ready to move beyond it – don’t just ask your current customers what they want or need. Instead, gain insight from Mainstream customers who have not yet adopted – since they are your target in the coming 12 to 24 months and beyond. We’ve seen companies suffer $1 billion losses due to this avoidable mistake.

The reason this is SO important in Product Management is that when you are in the early market you will have a huge fan base of incredibly passionate customers.

They will tell you how incredible your product is and you and your company will believe them. It’s just human nature. The danger is that if you only listen to your current early adopter fans you’ll end up adding lots of new features that are only relevant to a small portion of what could be a much larger future customer base. You really must apply the 80/20 rule when listening to your early fans – otherwise you might end up with a product that has more features than Microsoft Word!

The challenge is to get beyond these early fans to the people in the massive mainstream who are going to really make your product a household name (or a must-have necessity in the B2B world). It’s much harder to get feedback from these folks, as they generally aren’t product enthusiasts and it will take more time and effort to get their insights. But if you can succeed in integrating their feedback into your product plans it will be worth it.

The difference might just be that you end up with millions of customers instead of thousands.

About The Author

Productside Marketing

We’re the team behind the headlines, webinars, and memes that make product management sound as fun as it actually is.
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Frequently Asked Questions

Crossing the chasm refers to the challenge of moving a product from early adopters to the mainstream market. In product management, this transition requires shifting focus from visionary users to pragmatic buyers who demand proven value, simplicity, and reliability. Many products fail at this stage because teams continue building for early enthusiasts instead of mainstream customers.
Early adopters are highly passionate and forgiving, but they are not representative of the mainstream market. When product managers rely solely on early adopter feedback, they risk overbuilding niche features that do not scale. This creates bloated products that confuse mainstream buyers and prevent the product from achieving widespread adoption and revenue growth.
Product managers should prioritize feedback from mainstream customers who have not yet adopted the product but represent future growth. These customers provide insight into real adoption barriers, required outcomes, and buying criteria. Although harder to reach, their feedback helps shape a product that appeals to a much larger, more sustainable market.
The 80/20 rule reminds product managers to focus on the small set of features that deliver the majority of customer value. When crossing the chasm, this means filtering early adopter requests and prioritizing capabilities that solve common, mainstream problems rather than edge cases. This discipline keeps the product focused and scalable.
Product management plays a critical role by redefining the target customer, realigning the product roadmap, and guiding the organization away from early-market bias. By validating needs with mainstream buyers and resisting feature creep, product managers help ensure the product evolves from a niche success into a category-defining solution.

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