Crossing the Chasm is the gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0205, within the Markets family. The core principle: the gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
Scientific Definition
The gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products.
Plain-English Definition
The gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products.
Feynman Explanation
The hardest sale is the second category of customer.
Core Principle
The gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
The gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Product-market fit graduation.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The hardest sale is the second category of customer.
Examples
- Tech products that thrived with enthusiasts and died with the mainstream.
- Product-market fit graduation.
Pending editorial review.
Original analysis from The Incentives Lab — how this element behaves inside real payoff structures.
Why this element matters to incentive design
The mistake with this element is treating it as irrationality. It is almost always a rational response to a payoff nobody wrote down. The mechanism underneath it is straightforward: the gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products. You can recognize it in the field by its signature: the hardest sale is the second category of customer. Every element in the Cognition dimension changes the perceived payoff of an action before the action happens, which is exactly where incentive design has leverage.
How it gets exploited
Left undesigned, product-market fit graduation. It is amplified whenever product-market fit graduation. Inside organizations that shows up as product-market fit graduation. The pattern is the same one Goodhart's Law describes: the measurable proxy attracts the effort, and the purpose behind it quietly loses funding.
How the Lab designs around it
The redesign move is to plan deliberately for the chasm; it isn't accidental. Measure the behavior, not the sentiment. A survey will tell you how people feel about this; only observed action tells you whether it changed.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Plan deliberately for the chasm; it isn't accidental.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Plan deliberately for the chasm; it isn't accidental.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
The rate at which customers (or employees) leave over a period.
Innovators → early adopters → early majority → late majority → laggards.
Low-end or new-market entrants overtake established incumbents.
Prices driven far above intrinsic value by feedback loops of belief and behavior.
Asset prices fully reflect available information; you can't reliably beat the market.
Doing everything right by current customers can kill you.
Customers hire products to do a job in their life.
Aggregating many niche markets equals or exceeds the mainstream.
Beliefs about reality shape the reality.
Technologies grow slowly, then explode, then plateau.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Basics first (health/finances), then depth (mastery/impact), then altruism (widening circle).
Where Crossing the Chasm is cited in the corpus
Essays, field guides, and diagnostics from The Incentives Lab that apply this element.
- EssayGoodhart's Law in the Real World
How measurable proxies capture judgment.
- EssayThe Perverse Incentives Hiding in Your KPIs
Cognitive shortcuts turned into scorecards.
- EssayAI Agents Inherit Your Incentives
How this element propagates into automated systems.
- ReferenceThe Periodic Table of Human Behavior
The full 1,267-element map this page belongs to.
- ReferenceThe incentive glossary
Definitions for every mental model, bias, and fallacy in the corpus.
Questions about Crossing the Chasm
- What is Crossing the Chasm?
- Crossing the Chasm is the gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products. It sits in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™ as element HBT-COG-0205, within the Markets family. The core principle: the gap between early adopters and the early majority kills most products. In incentive terms, it matters because it changes the payoff people perceive before they choose — which means it can be designed for, or exploited.
- What is an example of Crossing the Chasm?
- Product-market fit graduation. The Incentives Lab catalogs everyday, organizational, and historical instances of this element on its Human Behavior Taxonomy™ page (HBT-COG-0205).
- How is Crossing the Chasm exploited?
- Product-market fit graduation.
- How do you design around Crossing the Chasm?
- Plan deliberately for the chasm; it isn't accidental.
- Which behavioral dimension does Crossing the Chasm belong to?
- Crossing the Chasm is classified in the Cognition dimension (COG) of the Human Behavior Taxonomy™, family "Markets", class "Mental Model". Its permanent identifier is HBT-COG-0205 and its evidence grade is B.