Situational awareness is critical to the success of new high-tech businesses and products. Sometimes called “doing the right things at the right time,” your activities and business disciplines must always be in alignment with the customer or end user.

Worries about loss of progress or lost advantage, relying on an unproven vendor, and the absence of peer-level support hold many people back from adopting new products and innovations. Here’s how to create an innovation that accounts for the human need for safety.

Crossing the Chasm is an innovation-adoption model that was first recognized and described by Lee James and Warren Schirtzinger, both of whom worked for Regis McKenna Inc. in the Pacific Northwest. The chasm model describes a market’s acceptance of a new product in terms of the types of users it attracts throughout its useful life.

Market Engineering is a method of avoiding high-tech failure by using a holistic view of both your product and target market. In a well-engineered market, products become a better fit for the changing needs of individuals.

Word-of-mouth communication often deals with awareness, interest, the source’s trial experience and product benefits all at the same time. This can move the recipient rapidly through the stages of purchase decision making and often even creating a reason for purchasing, all in one “exposure.”

How do you go from an idea or technology to building the right product for the right market to broad market adoption to building a successful company? The answer is in understanding the needs and motivations of each group in the adoption lifecycle.

Product adoption is typically determined by its cost benefit ratio, which is a measure of its value to the customer.  COVID-19 helps startups and established companies amplify the value of their product. And the best way to measure this value is with a cost benefit analysis.

Early adopters play a significant role in the beginnings of your high-tech company. Unfortunately everything you learn about marketing to early adopters will fail miserably when you try to use it in the future.

The most effective method of finding and recruiting early adopters is through a technique called “market relations.” It is a word-of-mouth method of identifying the best early-adopters for your product or innovation.