Who is Geoffrey Moore?

Author of Crossing the Chasm (1991) and advisor on technology market strategy — the man who mapped why tech products stall before the mainstream.

The gap between early adopters, who buy change, and the pragmatist early majority, who buy proven references — where most tech products die.

How do you cross the chasm?

Pick one beachhead niche, deliver the whole product it needs, win dominant references there, then expand to adjacent segments.

Growth Marketing Glossary

Geoffrey Moore

/ˈdʒɛfɹi mʊɹ/proper noun

Early adopters love you, the mainstream ignores you — Moore named the gap and drew the bridge.

Portrait mark — Geoffrey Moore

Name: Geoffrey A. Moore
Born: 1946
Key work: Crossing the Chasm (1991)
Framework: Beachhead / whole product

Forms & parts of speech

the chasm · noun phrase

His gap in the adoption curve.

"We're in the chasm — visionaries bought, pragmatists won't return calls."

Who he is, in plain terms

Geoffrey Moore is the former English professor turned Silicon Valley advisor who noticed that the classic technology-adoption curve hid a cliff. Crossing the Chasm (1991) showed that early adopters and the early majority buy for opposite reasons, so momentum with one predicts nothing with the other. Sequels Inside the Tornado (1995) and Zone to Win (2015) extended the map past the crossing.

The key ideas

Visionaries buy change itself; pragmatists buy proven solutions from market leaders their peers already use — and the gap between them is the chasm where most tech products die; the crossing strategy is the beachhead — dominate one narrow niche completely (the D-Day analogy), because pragmatists reference only their own segment; deliver the whole product, everything the niche needs to get value, not just the core technology; and only after owning the beachhead do you expand to adjacent segments — the bowling-alley sequence.

Why he still matters

"Niche down" is startup gospel because Moore proved the counterintuitive math — a smaller target market crosses faster than a bigger one. Every vertical-SaaS strategy, every "CRM for dental practices," every land-and-expand plan is the beachhead playbook. When a product has raving early users and flat mainstream sales, the diagnosis is on his map, and so is the cure.

Worked example. A dev-tools startup has passionate early adopters and stalled growth. The Moore diagnosis: chasm. The fix — pick fintech compliance teams as the beachhead, build the whole product for exactly them (the integrations, the audit reports, the case study with a name pragmatists recognize), and ignore every other segment for a year. References multiply inside the niche, the segment tips, and the bowling alley opens to adjacent regulated industries.

Failure modes to watch. Selling to pragmatists with visionary messaging about revolutionary change; spreading thin across segments instead of owning one beachhead; and shipping core technology while the niche waits for the whole product.

Synonyms & antonyms

Synonyms

Geoffrey Moorethe chasm

Origin & history

Born 1946; literature PhD (University of Washington) and English professor before sales and consulting at Regis McKenna's firm, advising tech clients. The chasm insight came from watching client after client stall post-early-adopter; the book appeared in 1991 and has never left print.

Etymology: source.

Usage trends

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Common questions

Who is Geoffrey Moore?: Author of Crossing the Chasm (1991) and advisor on technology market strategy — the man who mapped why tech products stall before the mainstream.
What is the chasm?: The gap between early adopters, who buy change, and the pragmatist early majority, who buy proven references — where most tech products die.
How do you cross the chasm?: Pick one beachhead niche, deliver the whole product it needs, win dominant references there, then expand to adjacent segments.

Related tools & calculators

toolCAC calculator
toolLTV-to-CAC ratio

Resources & people to follow

bookCrossing the Chasm — Geoffrey Moore
bookZone to Win — Geoffrey Moore
referenceGeoffreyAMoore.com

Curated, non-competitor resources verified per term.

Related training

moduleGrowth marketing foundations

Disciplines

Areas of marketing where geoffrey moore is a core concern:

Growth strategyAnalytics

Sources

trendsGoogle Trends — "crossing the chasm"