Someone recently put it that it’s the first 10% of adoption that sets the future for a product.
There are people online calling it the “tech adoption cycle” but this is a concept I encountered in a literal Business 101 class. 2.5% of the population are Innovators. 12.5 are early adopters. Then there’s 70% in the middle where most of your cash comes in, and by the time the laggards hit you’re optimizing for cost per unit because you’ve had to drop the price so much due to competition from copycats and from the next new thing.
So by the time 60% of your early adopters are onboard it’s already been decided if you’re on a rocket ship or this is just a burp.
Early adopters have a high tolerance for inconveniences but it’s not infinite. If they bleed enough they will find something else, and then you are DOA.
There are people online calling it the “tech adoption cycle” but this is a concept I encountered in a literal Business 101 class. 2.5% of the population are Innovators. 12.5 are early adopters. Then there’s 70% in the middle where most of your cash comes in, and by the time the laggards hit you’re optimizing for cost per unit because you’ve had to drop the price so much due to competition from copycats and from the next new thing.
So by the time 60% of your early adopters are onboard it’s already been decided if you’re on a rocket ship or this is just a burp.
Early adopters have a high tolerance for inconveniences but it’s not infinite. If they bleed enough they will find something else, and then you are DOA.