Geoffrey Moore, author, speaker, and advisor, discusses crossing the chasm and dominating a market. Topics include steps before crossing the chasm, winning a marquee customer, go-to-market playbooks, deadly sins to avoid, and the dangers of discounting.

My guest today is the renowned tech author, consultant, and venture partner at Wildcat Ventures, Geoffrey Moore. Geoffrey has spent his career focused on the dynamics surrounding disruptive innovations and his book, Crossing the Chasm, has become a canonical work for young businesses trying to unlock mainstream markets. This discussion is a masterclass on business strategy. We start with Geoffrey’s more recent work on category-defining businesses, break down his life cycle of adoption framework, and close with the ways messaging should change as a company evolves. Please enjoy this great discussion with Geoffrey Moore. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. -----Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Show Notes[00:03:08] - [First question] - What he means by a gorilla business[00:07:10] - An example of how companies self-organize into gorillas, chimps, and monkeys[00:09:41] - Why architecture is so important and how it applies to company building [00:13:11] - How and when businesses should think about open and closed systems[00:14:50] - Ways in which enabling tech companies are superior to application ones[00:16:39] - Thoughts on approaching and hiring a singular use case company [00:18:23] - Markets underestimate competitive advantage periods for technological gorillas[00:20:38] - The inertia and duration of being the creator of a space’s architecture[00:23:28] - Advice for early-stage companies when creating or dominating categories [00:25:16] - What he’s learned about identifying trapped value [00:26:49] - Questions that can identify trapped value, factoring for time, and horizontal uses[00:41:49] - Problems with risk exposure in B2B and applying this model for value creation[00:33:37] - His initial discovery of the life cycles of adoption and its five categories[00:39:29] - Perspective on venture capital funding and going from idea to the chasm[00:44:10] - What good pragmatists in pain look like [00:47:29] - Successful vertical uses-case sales motions[00:50:03] - Guarding from becoming over-specialized in a singular focused effort[00:50:52] - The Diffusion of Innovations; Ways messages work their way through a company to keep up with category evolution [00:55:00] - How extensible these ideas are to non-technology businesses[00:56:04] - The race between innovation and distribution [00:56:44] - What about the world today has changed or influenced his thinking[00:59:17] - Ways big companies can stay competitive in emerging categories[01:02:23] - The company he’s most enjoyed studying over his career [01:05:25] - Shared characteristics of exceptional leaders he’s met and talked to[01:07:48] - The Gorilla Game, Crossing the Chasm[01:08:14] - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for him

Geoffrey Moore, author of the influential book on marketing disruptive technologies, dives into the challenges of transitioning from early adopters to the mainstream market. He discusses the technology adoption lifecycle and introduces psychographics to understand different consumer groups. Moore also emphasizes the essential strategy of niche market mastery for sustainable growth, using war analogies to illustrate the importance of positioning and segmentation. His insights into effective engagement and strategic focus offer valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Join Geoffrey Moore, best-selling author and venture capitalist known for his insights on innovation strategy. He discusses the crucial zones of innovation management in established businesses, emphasizing how to integrate generative AI effectively. Moore highlights the impact of AI on the workforce and parallels it to historical shifts like electrification. He also addresses the swift adoption of generative AI and its implications across sectors, stressing the need for genuine innovation amid economic uncertainties.

Geoffrey Moore, author of 'The Infinite Staircase', joins the hosts to discuss topics like understanding ethics in a secular world, the concept of self-organization in different layers of the universe, the role of language in narrative, embracing mortality, the significance of narrative and legacy, and the connection between meditation and philosophy.