What is the Technology Adoption Lifecycle?
The Technology Adoption Lifecycle (TAL) gets all the people in a market for a given product/service and groups them by their need to solve the problem they have.
It groups them as follows:
- Innovators
Have a problem, know they have a problem, are actively seeking a solution, maybe even cobbling a solution together
This group is the easiest to please. As long as the solution you make is better than their cobbled together one, they will adopt it. It is important to focus and do one thing extremely well, as this customer base will become evangelists and help you lure early adopters.
- Early adopters
Have a problem, know they have a problem, are actively seeking a solution
Your solution needs to be a bit shinier to impress this group. They are seeking a solution to their problem, so let the innovators convince them yours is the best.
- Chasm (more on this later)
- Early majority
Have a problem, know they have a problem
This group is not actively seeking a solution. You need to find and nurture a lighthouse user, to attract other users in this category. Their demands for product quality will be much higher than earlier groups - you will need a much more polished product to win here.
- Late majority
Have a problem, don’t know they have a problem
You’ve now got to convince this market they have a problem for your solution. It therefore needs to be flawless. You need to accumulate a good sales pitch from your earlier market experiences.
- Laggards
Have a problem, don’t know they have a problem, even when they find out they pretend not to have a problem
Your highly tuned sales and marketing engine is going to be put to the test. This market is very hard to penetrate. These are people who still don’t have a mobile phone.
Product evolution
When you build an MVP to solve a problem the innovator group is where you need to be. This group will help validate your idea and will be your first customers. They won’t care too much if your product is rough around the edges. Likewise the early adopter group will pick up your MVP when you have refined it with the innovator group, and have proven it can work to solve a problem.
Crossing The Chasm comes next. Going from a group of people who are actively looking for a solution to one that is not is a difficult leap. You are going to need to sell hard here. This group will benefit from your solution but they will need persuading.
Imagine you started a delivery company that prioritised speed - 2 hours or less. There are a group of people out there who need this speed so much they don’t care if you are a bit rough and ready - as long as they get their parcels quickly (innovators). Next come early adopters will will benefit from the speed but need a bit more of a polished product, they need proper confirmations etc and more polished product to make it work for them - but they seek you out as they want fast delivery. Then comes the chasm. There is a proportion of the market that would benefit from fast delivery, but they are not actively looking. You need to go out and tell them you exist and show you can deliver. As this group is not actively looking you need a polished product as they will not switch from what they have now (slow and works and I’m comfortable) to something else (fast and might work and will be a pain if it does not work). You have to work to overcome the forces pulling them back to the old solution. The final two groups are harder - the late majority don’t realise the benefits of fast delivery - things they might not be able to purchase (food etc) suddenly become available, but they do not think like this. They think “I have never had this so why would I want it now?”. Laggards might not even order parcels.