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Early Adopters as True Believers

Oct19
2009 2 Comments Written by Reid

Seth Godin has a great post this morning called True believers (and the truth).  At some point in every young company’s life, it must make the transition from selling to early-adopter customers who “get it” to the much larger group of prospects who don’t.  This also applies to certain product launches by more established companies.  I have been working on a post or two about this theme, so Seth’s post resonated with me immediately.  More to come on this topic.

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  • Tom Corddry

    True believers NEED to have preferences that differ from the mainstream–the reward for being a true believer is a sense of superiority, because one has higher standards, or a more acute and discriminating eye, ear, nose, or palate, or greater insider knowledge–whatever it takes to establish superiority. Companies have made good money catering to true believers, as long as they recognize that they are selling low-volome, high-margin products to the precious few. Sometimes that cachet that comes with success at the high end can be used to build success with differently-branded products, lower-priced and less “excluding” in their design, sold to the broader market. To do this, however, a company needs to avoid being too seduced by the attentions of the true believers, who would rather that they NOT “pander to the masses.”

  • Tom Corddry

    True believers NEED to have preferences that differ from the mainstream–the reward for being a true believer is a sense of superiority, because one has higher standards, or a more acute and discriminating eye, ear, nose, or palate, or greater insider knowledge–whatever it takes to establish superiority. Companies have made good money catering to true believers, as long as they recognize that they are selling low-volome, high-margin products to the precious few. Sometimes that cachet that comes with success at the high end can be used to build success with differently-branded products, lower-priced and less “excluding” in their design, sold to the broader market. To do this, however, a company needs to avoid being too seduced by the attentions of the true believers, who would rather that they NOT “pander to the masses.”

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