Product Strategist: Assumptions and Market Transitions

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In this article, I'll comment on Tim Roche's post "The other death spiral" on his "Musings on Software Product Mangement and Marketing" blog at http://tinyurl.com/ajlj3k.

Under Moore's technology adoption lifecycle (TALC) approach, assumptions made in any one of the serial markets would have to be reworked when you transitioned to the next market. Moore goes further than that. Pretty much everything changes as you transition into the next market: organizational structure, go to market tactics, who you sell to, and staff.

Most companies don't create discontinuous or radical innovation, so they ignore the TALC. But, it applies even if you go directly to SaaS or consumer markets. That implies that the transitions inherent in those serial markets affect every software business, regardless of their awareness of or compliance with the TALC.

 

A company might run for ten years before they bump into one of the TALC transitions. They might skip the discontinuous markets and jump into the IT early mainstreet market without thinking about being the "real" market leader. So those transitions might appear to occur rarely, but when companies hit those transitions, they die. Nobody looks back to wonder why the assumptions that held for so long suddenly went so wrong. 

 

Consider the TALC to be a map. Consider it a clock. Yes, Moore said it wasn't a clock. Sure, it's not a synchronous clock. It's an asynchronous clock. It is ordered. On that clock, you are where you think you are, and you are where the market things you are. If you and the market don't agree, you lose. Transition early. Transition fully. Commit. Check your assumptions at the door. Make new ones and begin testing them right away.

 

Transtions don't kill. Managers do.