Target Customer Characterization
Use scenario-based profiling to select your beachhead segment when you have high risk and low data.
Target Customer Characterization is Moore's process for making the high-risk, low-data decision of choosing a beachhead market segment. Because companies at the chasm have limited mainstream market data -- their experience is almost entirely with innovators and visionaries -- they cannot use traditional market research to identify the best niche to target. Instead, Moore prescribes a scenario-based approach that relies on informed intuition.
The process begins by creating vivid, specific 'day in the life' scenarios for potential target customers. Each scenario describes a real person in a real role at a real type of company, depicting their current workflow (before the product) and their transformed workflow (after the product). The specificity of these scenarios -- naming the person, their title, their frustrations, their workaround hacks -- forces the team to move beyond abstract market sizing into concrete customer understanding.
These scenarios are then evaluated using the Market Development Strategy Checklist, a nine-factor scoring system that assesses each candidate segment's viability. The combination of vivid scenarios and systematic evaluation produces a beachhead decision that is grounded in customer empathy and strategic reality, even when hard data is scarce.
- {"title":"Informed Intuition Beats Analysis Paralysis","description":"At the chasm, you will never have enough data to make a purely analytical decision. The cost of waiting for perfect data exceeds the cost of making an informed but imperfect choice. Create the best scenarios you can with available knowledge, evaluate them systematically, and commit."}
- {"title":"Specificity Creates Clarity","description":"Abstract segments like 'healthcare' or 'financial services' are useless for beachhead selection. You need to describe a specific person with a specific title at a specific type of company facing a specific problem. The more specific the scenario, the more actionable it becomes."}
- {"title":"Before-and-After Reveals the Compelling Reason to Buy","description":"By depicting the customer's day before and after your product, you expose whether a genuine, urgent pain point exists. If the 'after' scenario is only marginally better than the 'before,' there is no compelling reason to buy, and the segment should be eliminated."}
- {"title":"Showstoppers Override Scores","description":"The Market Development Strategy Checklist includes nine factors, but certain factors are absolute requirements. If a segment has no identifiable target customer, no compelling reason to buy, or no path to a complete whole product, it must be eliminated regardless of its score on other factors."}
- Brainstorm Target Customer ScenariosAssemble your team and generate at least ten specific scenarios. Each scenario should identify: the target customer (name, title, company type), their current situation and frustrations (the 'before'), and how your product transforms their workflow (the 'after'). Be vivid and specific -- imagine a real person with real problems.Pro tipDraw from real conversations with early adopters and prospects. Ask them: 'Who else do you know who has this problem worse than you do?' Their answers point to pragmatist niches you may not have considered.
- Write Day-in-the-Life Before and After NarrativesFor each scenario, write a one-page narrative of the target customer's typical day before your product and after your product. Focus on specific pain points, workarounds, time wasted, risks incurred, and opportunities missed. The 'after' narrative should show measurable, concrete improvements.WarningIf you cannot write a compelling 'before' narrative -- if the customer's current situation does not involve significant pain or risk -- the segment likely has no compelling reason to buy. Do not force it.
- Evaluate Each Scenario Using the Market Development Strategy ChecklistScore each scenario across nine factors: (1) target customer identifiability, (2) compelling reason to buy, (3) whole product completeness, (4) partners and allies availability, (5) distribution channel fit, (6) pricing viability, (7) competitive landscape, (8) positioning clarity, (9) next target customer connectivity. Use a 1-5 scale with showstopper screening.Pro tipScreen for showstoppers first: target customer, compelling reason to buy, and whole product. If any of these three scores a 1, eliminate the scenario before bothering with the remaining factors.
- Rank Scenarios and Select the BeachheadAfter screening showstoppers and scoring all factors, rank the remaining scenarios by total score. Discuss the top two or three with the team, challenge assumptions, and select the highest-ranked scenario as your beachhead commitment.Pro tipWhen two scenarios are close in score, choose the one where your team has the deepest domain expertise or the strongest existing relationships. Intangible advantages matter at the chasm.
- Validate with a Size CheckConfirm the beachhead is sized correctly: big enough to matter (sufficient annual revenue to sustain the business during the crossing), small enough to lead (you can realistically achieve 50%+ market share), and a good fit with your crown jewels (your core technology differentiators). If it fails any of these three, reconsider.WarningCompanies consistently choose beachheads that are too large because they confuse addressable market with winnable market. If you cannot name the companies in your beachhead by name, it is probably too large.
Moore walks through the 3-D printing market as an extended example. Rather than targeting 'manufacturing' broadly, the team develops specific scenarios: a dental lab owner creating custom crowns, an orthopedic surgeon planning surgeries with 3-D bone models, an aerospace engineer prototyping turbine blades, a fashion designer creating custom jewelry. Each scenario is evaluated for compelling reason to buy, whole product feasibility, and expansion potential. The dental lab scenario might win because the pain is acute, the whole product is manageable, and the segment connects to adjacent medical device niches.
Documentum evaluated multiple document management scenarios across industries. The pharmaceutical regulatory affairs scenario stood out because the target customer was highly identifiable (regulatory affairs manager at a pharmaceutical company), the compelling reason to buy was extreme (FDA compliance failures could shut down the company), and the whole product gap was manageable. This scenario-driven selection led to Documentum's successful chasm crossing.
Moore developed this approach because he saw technology companies at the chasm paralyzed by analysis. Lacking mainstream market data, leadership teams would endlessly debate which segment to target, waiting for data that would never arrive. The chasm is inherently a low-data environment because your experience is with early adopters, not pragmatists.
The scenario-based approach breaks this paralysis by channeling the team's collective customer knowledge into structured, evaluable profiles. Moore calls this 'informed intuition' -- using what you do know (your technology's strengths, the problems early adopters have mentioned, industry pain points visible in trade press) to create plausible scenarios that can be compared and ranked. The key insight is that any informed commitment is better than continued indecision.