Visionaries Poison the Well for Pragmatists

“Because of these incompatibilities, early adopters do not make good references for the early majority. And because of the early majority’s concern not to disrupt their organizations, good references are critical to their buying decisions. So what we have here is a catch-22. The only suitable reference for an early majority customer, it turns out, is another member of the early majority, but no upstanding member of the early majority will buy without first having consulted with several suitable references.”

“Crossing the chasm requires moving from an environment of support among the visionaries back into one of skepticism among the pragmatists.”