

The Bowling Pin strategy - bjonathan
http://cdixon.org/2010/08/21/the-bowling-pin-strategy/

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ankeshk
I had a friend who used to install peep holes on doors. He would go door to
door and try to sell his peep hole installation service.

Usually, he would get 2-3% of the houses he knocked on to buy his services. He
would install the peep holes in 15 minutes and be off.

He later managed to get this 2-3% to 20%. What he did was revisited the houses
that had refused his offer during the first time - and told them: so and so of
your neighbour installed it. Would you want to install it too?

He later on bumped that 20% to an insane 90%! How? Got endorsement letters
from the local fire houses. And from the homeowner's association.

The strategy teachers may call this the Bowling Pin strategy. He simply called
it "saturating an area." And getting approvals from the influentials.

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BobbyH
This sounds like a great strategy of using local customer and authoritative
references to increase social proof to close sales.

However, the "bowling pin/alley" strategy mentioned in the articles applies in
the slightly different context of a disruptive product. A peep hole is not a
disruptive product.

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jamesbritt
"This sounds like a great strategy of using local customer and authoritative
references to increase social proof to close sales."

Isn't that just what Facebook did? Got one notable school to adopt it, and
then used that as social proof of its value to expand?

"A peep hole is not a disruptive product."

It is if you're a door-to-door salesperson. Big difference if people feel they
can quietly ignore you after peeping out the hole, versus having to make some
sort of contact and then trying to turn you away.

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BobbyH
> [A peep hole] is [a disruptive product] if you're a door-to-door salesperson

Geoff Moore's theories apply to disruptive or discontinuous products that
force _customers_ to make a significant change in behavior. A peep hole may
force door-to-door salespeople to make significant changes in behavior, but
the customer doesn't make a significant change in behavior. The "disruption"
or "discontinuity" refers to the changes in behavior of the consumer.

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Qz
Did you read the post you were responding to? How the consumer changes
behavior was clearly explained.

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amix
If you like this you should read "Crossing the Chasm" and "Inside the Tornado"
- they go into greater depths of how to find a niche, how to pivot and how the
general market forces work.

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BobbyH
A summary of Crossing the Chasm (a great book):

* All products are first adopted by Innovators, then Early Adopters, the Early Majority, the Late Majority, and finally Laggards. You may be an Early Adopter in one market (e.g. gadgets) but a Laggard in another (e.g. fashion).

* Disruptive products may do well with Innovators and Early Adopters, but the Early Majority is not willing to deal with a product that they don't understand (because it's not like another product they know).

* Happily, the Early Majority finds out about new products from the Early Adopters. So if you're building a disruptive product, you need to first make a critical mass of Early Adopters willing to recommend you to the Early Majority.

* To do this, he suggests that you make a "whole product" that addresses 100% of the needs of a particular niche (a "bowling pin"). The users in that niche will endure the pains of early-adoption in order to have 100% of their needs met (versus a generalized product that only meets, say, 80% of your needs). You will thus get happy Early Adopters in one niche.

* Then, you add the features you need to create a whole product for the next niche. As you succeed in each niche, you are not only improving your product, but you are collecting customer references in each niche. Eventually, if you have great customer references in a lot of niches, you can "cross the chasm" faced by all disruptive products by having enough overall customer references that the Early Majority will hear about and try your product.

* So, using this approach gives you two advantages. First, you have explicitly considered a bunch of niches and added features to make your product satisfy customer needs deeply. Second, you have a critical mass of customer references to "cross the chasm" to the mass market.

Here is an illustration:
[http://faculty.msb.edu/homak/homahelpsite/webhelp/Crossing_t...](http://faculty.msb.edu/homak/homahelpsite/webhelp/Crossing_the_Chasm_-
_Bowling_Alley.htm)

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h0h0h0
Thanks for this excellent summary of the book. I'm involved in product
development for a company and was taking some of the management claims on face
value without really understanding "how" the product is going to sell!!! Shame
on me!

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ethanhuynh
startups that want to disrupt big guys can also use this strategy, find a
niche that is overshot by the incumbents, offer them a good enough product,
but improve the performance on other dimensions that big guys overlook, then
pivot. I think this works for both disruptive product in existing market and
new product in new market

