Mladen

“As soon as the numbers get up in a chart - or better yet, a graph - as soon as they thus become blessed with some specious authenticity, they become the drivers in high-risk, low-data situations because these people are so anxious to have data. That's when you hear them saying things like "It will be a billion-dollar market in 2016. If we only get five percent of that market..." When you hear that sort of stuff, exit gracefully, holding on to your wallet.”
― Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

“One of the most important lessons about crossing the chasm is that the task ultimately requires achieving an unusual degree of company unity during the crossing period. This is a time when one should forgo the quest for eccentric marketing genius in favor of achieving an informed consensus among mere mortals. It is a time not for dashing and expensive gestures but rather for careful plans and cautiously rationed resources-a time not to gamble all on some brilliant coup but rather to focus everyone on pursuing a high-probability course of action and making as few mistakes as possible.”
― Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers

“The actor can learn from the painter about the emotive power of facial expressions. The painter from the designer, about the potential of juxtaposing images and words. And the designer from the poet, who can create warmth through the sparseness of a carefully chosen, well-placed word.”
― Frank Chimero, The Shape of Design

“Indeed, a truly predatory type of investor - sometimes referred to as a vulture capitalist - looks to use the chasm period of struggle and failure as a means to discredit the current management, thereby driving down the equity value in the company, so that in the next round of funding, he or she has an opportunity to secure dominant control of the company, install a new management team, and, worst case, become the owner of the major technology asset, dirt cheap. This is an incredibly destructive exercise during which not only the baby and the bathwater but all human values and winning opportunities are thrown out the window. Nonetheless, it happens.”
― Geoffrey A. Moore, Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers