The Better Way To Identify Early Adopters For Your Startup

Finding early adopters sounds simple in theory.

Just target the usual suspects like gadget-loving techies, right? Well, with 8 years as a startup CMO, I’ve learnt by experience that the stereotypical early adopter profile can miss your perfect first customers entirely.

In this post, I’ll share how reframing early adopters around “problem solvers” helped turn around traction for two of my startups. And I’ll give you a simple framework for finding the early adopters with fit for your startup's offer.

The kind of customers that will stick with you through the bugs, pay your prices without blinking, and make introductions to everyone they know.

You already know WHY you need to identify your early adopters

At least, I will assume that you do and keep this bit quick.

The term 'early adopters' was popularized by Geoffrey Moore's seminal 1991 book, "Crossing the Chasm". Moore articulately demonstrates that only a specific segment of an audience possesses the daring mindset necessary to embrace the risk associated with new, untested technology, especially “discontinuous innovations.”

Moore's advice to first market new innovations to early adopters is still applicable today, but it's not without issues that can confuse and mislead founders.

The problem with most early adopter definitions

Many entrepreneurs, following Geoffrey Moore's advice, often end up defining their early adopters as a stereotypical "technophile" - typically a gadget-driven, affluent young male.

Indeed the internet and startup media is awash with advice that finders should mostly find early adopters by turning to sites like Product Hunt, Hacker News, Kickstarter etc, which are rich with bleeding edge early adopter-y people.

While this profile may be accurate and beneficial for a handful of gadget-centric startups, adopting such a narrow perspective for your startup could lead to potential issues:

• They might not want or need your product
  Just because a person loves technology in general, doesn’t mean that they want or need your category of product, leading to low engagement and adoption
  
  

• They may be entirely the wrong demographic
  Suppose you’re offering a specialist AI search engine specifically for advanced researchers, or a better hearing aid for elderly consumers. Nothing about the technophile stereotype suggests that they might fit your market
  
  

• They don’t necessarily have the budget.
  If they are not aware they need your product, they probably have not budgeted for it. Selling is much faster and easier if they have already decided to budget for solving the problem
  
  

• They’re not necessarily in-market
  Even if they want your product and have the money, the timing could be wrong. Some products such as furniture may have a long cycle between purchases. And if someone is mid way through a contract on a product such as a mobile phone or car lease, they are actively out of market and couldn't buy even if they wanted to
  
  

• They are saturated and expensive to contact
  Because many companies converge on this same profile, they compete for the same attention, which makes cutting through the noise and reaching the audience rather expensive

Even if your startup does have a gadget targeted at technophiles, these factors remain a problem. So what about if your startup really doesn’t serve technophiles at all?

What other methods can you use to decide who your early adopters are?

Why Early Adopters Are Valuable

Let’s go back to why Moore set out to teach people about early adopters at all.

The proclaimed core values of a technophile as an early adopter is that they are willing to

• Overlook the deficiencies of your early product

• Adapt their behavior and habits to bend to accommodating how your product needs to work

• Tell other early adopting friends of theirs about your product

So it’s all about having the motivation to try something new that most people wouldn’t, and then stick with it for longer than most other people would.

But what if there were something else that could provide even more powerful motivation?

Introducing The Problem Solver Early Adopter

The most potent motivation that drives first adopters to make a purchase is having a problem that they want to solve.

A real life, real world problem is often more motivating than any technophile’s itch to buy another cool gadget. It's also a motivation that spans across generations and demographics, even if they’ve never heard of product hunt or even know how to send email from their smart phone.

Ask yourself: Who is already trying to solve the problem you solve, but just doesn’t know your product exists yet?

That’s your ideal early adopter.

Why Problem Solvers Make the Best Early Adopters

As a serial startup CMO and advisor, I’ve experienced first hand just how superior the problem solving early adopters are compared to technophile personas.

Not only do problem solvers not represent some of the aforementioned challenges of technographic targeting, they also offer other benefits for your startup:

1. Motivation is assured
   By selecting for users that already know they have a problem, you can be sure they will have the motivation needed to push through early product problems.
   
   

2. More likely to love and appreciate the solution
   If someone really has a problem, and you can solve it for them, they will appreciate it much more than someone that didn’t really have a problem but just thought it sounded cool.
   
   

3. Already “in market” for a solution
   If they already know they have a problem, they may also already be searching for a solution. Which means their consideration is open when you reach them, and they could buy more quickly, shortening your sales cycle
   
   

4. They have already researched alternative solutions or even tried some
   This makes them a great early adopter because their feedback on your product will be extra potent and valuable to you.
   
   

5. May already have a budget
   One step further, they may have already set aside some money to purchase a solution in the near future, making it easier for you to unlock their purchase.
   
   

6. Willing to pay more
   Nothing increases willingness to pay like a pain that needs to be resolved. The more acute and severe your customer’s pain, the more they will be willing to pay you.
   
   

7. They may have already discussed the problem with their friends
   Which means they may know other people with the problem, which means they can refer your product for you to afterwards, boosting customer referral rate and fueling product-market fit.
   
   

8. More likely to refer the solution
   Fueled by their delight at having their problem solved, they are more likely to go through the effort of actually referring the product to a friend, compared to a technophile that was just casually impressed.
   
   

9. More diverse opportunities to reach them
   By considering what problem the customer may be trying to solve, we can experiment with a wider variety of acquisition channels, such as long tail SEM and niche communities
   
   

10. Cut-through and saturation
    Targeting a niche can create the opportunity to “shower them with love” by investing more time and money into delighting them than any other competitor would do, which gets you noticed and appreciated.

Best of all, these benefits are universal and applicable to any and every customer segment, regardless whether that segment contains any stereotypical technophiles at all.

Problem Solver Early Adopters Example: Topology Eyewear

This is not just something I learnt in a book, I learnt this first hand together with my team at Topology Eyewear where I was Chief Marketing Officer from Sep 2016 to Dec 2019.

For context, Topology’s business model at that time* was creating custom-fit eyeglasses made from scratch for one person at a time. It was a perfect example of a “discontinuous innovation” because customers needed to change their behavior to adopt it. Rather than buying from a store, it required a new customer to download an app to their iphone, scan their face, style the glasses and order.

This obviously requires a fair degree of comfort with technology. And with a price point that rivaled tradtional designer glasses, we knew it was not for everyone.

*Note: Topology have since pivoted to a more B2B model serving the eyewear industry

Our First Early Adopter Assumption = SF Techies

One advantage of Topology was that the tech was very cool and had serious wow factor.

We were confident that the product's technical achievements would excite those in the tech and startup industries. By focusing on the young, affluent, tech-savvy housing market in San Francisco, we set the stage for a self-referencing early adopter market, as Moore would suggest. Except there was one clear and obvious issue.

Topology’s features and benefits were best experienced and most appreciated by older customers with stronger prescriptions. But not every affluent young techie in SF even wears glasses at all, and most that do have lighter prescriptions that could easily be satisfied by $95 stock eyewear.

They didn’t resonate with the problem we solved, so our product was considered a nice-to-have, but at 5X the price of Warby Parker.

Pivot = Asian Americans

Going back to first principles, we considered challenged ourselves on what problems the product really solved and who most valued that solution.

• The founding problem was that most glasses don’t fit most people, which is why most wearers experience glasses that pinch, rub, slide down their nose or just take hours and hours to find and match

• The reason is that every person’s face is truly unique and different, but all eyeglasses are made thousands at a time for a mythical average face that doesn’t really exist

• Furthermore, almost all stock eyeglasses in USA are made for an average caucasian face, creating an even worse fit for other ethnicities

• This problem was most acute for Asian Americans, who often have a quite different bone structure to the caucasian fit glasses

• This explained the high proportion of Asian Americans within our customer base, who were buying at a multiple higher rate than the national average would suggest

• And it turned out there was already an existing category of “asian fit glasses” that was being actively sought out by this customer, so all we needed to do was interrupt that purchase and explain the benefits of Custom Fit instead.

As the opportunity became clear, we doubled down on it by setting an internal goal of “Earning the right to be the eyewear of choice for Asian Americans”

We deliberately involved Asian American staff and advisors in the styling and product development of our frame styles. We also ensured representation of Asian Americans in all our marketing materials.

We even went so far as to find and partner with the Asian American Optometrist Society in Orange County, CA. As an example of point 10 listed above, even with our limited marketing budget we were able to sponsor their quarterly dinner, showing commitment that they “had never seen before” and earning their advocacy with their customers.

The result was a clear focus and alignment across the team for what we were creating, who for and how to reach them.

Though Topology later pivoted into a different market and business model, this strategy was effective in isolating an effective “market insertion point” for our consumer offering.

Problem Solver Early Adopters Example: Bryte

After 3.5 years at Topology I took over the CMO role at Bryte, a Restorative Sleep Technology company where I suspected I would again find our early adopters to be rich with problem solvers.

As I took the reins and conducted customer discovery interviews, I asked carefully designed questions to probe at why customers bought the product, despite its high price point and unknown brand. What I found was a vast majority of early customer - over 80% - described a specific problem with their sleep that they wanted to solve. They looked nothing like a stereotypical technophile early adopter, but everything like the problem solving, expert shopping version of the affluent Gen X customer the product was intended for.

And it’s not just for consumer products - this strategy works equally well for digital products and B2B products - including the various B2B SaaS and AI clients I serve with my consulting business, The Traction Design Co.

How to identify your problem solver early adopters

Hopefully you’re now curious to see if taking a problem solver approach to identifying early adopters can help your business.

Here’s how you can define and find your problem solving early adopters:

• What problem does your product solve?
  Be as specific as possible, and if there is more than one, select the problem your product makes the biggest impact on.
  
  

• Who suffers the most from that problem?
  Brainstorm the customer personas that feel the effects of this problem most severely or most chronically
  
  

• How do they experience and characterize this problem?
  Conduct customer discovery interviews to understand how the problem effects their lives and what language they use to talk about it. This is your clue to how to market your solution to their needs
  
  

• What does that person do when they recognize they are really struggling with that problem?
  Do they ask a friend? Search Google for a certain term? Do they visit a particular media property or seek a certain expert? This is your opportunity to put yourself in the places that they are already looking.
  
  

• What else might they do to solve this problem?
  These are your competitors. If there is no directly similar product to yours, the other ways they are solving or alleviating their pain is the indirect competition that you need to switch them from.

Conclusion: Empowering Your Startup by Identifying Problem-Solving Early Adopters

In sum, the pursuit of early adopters is a critical journey for startups, but one that can be navigated more effectively by looking beyond the stereotypical technophile.

By focusing on problem solvers, individuals who are actively seeking solutions to their specific issues, you unlock a powerful, motivated market segment. These are the early adopters who will not only use your product, but provide valuable feedback, and most importantly, become advocates for your solution.

So, redefine your early adopter strategy, look for the problem solvers, and set your startup on a path to success.

Need A Little More Help Finding Your Early Adopters?

If you’ve enjoyed this post but still have some questions, would like to bounce some ideas off someone or discuss any other aspect of Traction Design, book a pro-bono (free and no obligation) chat with me now.

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