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by Jonathan Enav In many LTV classes we discussed Geoffrey Moore’s Chasm and whether it is a benefit or a hindrance through the lens of startups following the lean methodology.  However, we never discussed what can make the “chasm” shrink or expand.  Moore’s theory is that there is a “chasm” that separates the innovators and early adopters of a new technology from the mainstream, and that technology companies often find it hard to cross this chasm and grow beyond their core user base to become a widely adopted medium.  Crossing the chasm is not easy and often requires pivoting your product away from your core early adopters towards the mainstream.  The lean methodology offers guidelines to achieve this; pivot early, pivot often, form a hypothesis, test it, pivot again until you find product/market fit.  So why do so many startups fail at this stage?  The lean methodology tries to make crossing the chasm easier by effectively making the chasm smaller.  ...

by Natasha Prasad A few weeks ago, Fred Wilson and Jeff Bussgang supplanted our usual LTV class with a fireside chat on lean startup methodologies, monetization and VC value-add.  A Fred idea I found particularly compelling suggests that entrepreneurs should be “hunch-driven”, rather than “data-driven” in the early days of a startup.  Indeed, if Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg hadn’t stuck to their hunches, Twitter would never have gotten past 1000 users and Facebook’s newsfeed wouldn’t exist. Hunches, however, can only get you so far: most successful startups will at some point face the excruciating transition from early adopter glory to mainstream success.  Founders like Dennis Crowley, who admit to having built products for their own friends, are now struggling to gain momentum with the mass market.  If users outside of NYC, LA and San Francisco lack the vanity-driven penchant for public bar and restaurant hopping, how can Foursquare possibly grow beyond its 6 mil...

by James Matthews Early on in our Launching Tech Ventures course we had the privilege of a visit from Eric Ries to our classroom for a Q&A session. Eric is a leading proponent of the lean start-up methodology; he has written extensively on the subject and has coined much of the terminology of the (increasingly formalized) discipline. One particular point that Eric made stood out to me that day. He made the argument that Moore’s Chasm is a benefit, not an obstacle to the lean start-up. Geoffrey Moore’s seminal book, “ Crossing the Chasm ,” describes a major problem faced by many technology companies: there is a chasm in the product lifecycle between early adopters (or “visionaries”) and the early majority (or “pragmatists”). One fundamental difficulty in crossing the chasm is that your early adopters are not good referees for the mainstream – even if these “visionaries” love your product, the rest of the world does not trust them. Moore observed that many companies failed when cr...