And while in some cultures it is ok to “ban” words, that’s not really what we do in the US.

A vertical market has a culture. It has a vocabulary. It has its own meanings. Focusing on level of the industry stack will help you get your meaning right, which leads to successful communications within that market. Nothing is generic in a vertical. Do not move around into other verticals within the same branch of the overall industry tree.

Moore’s technology adoption lifecycle tells us to find a client. That client is inherently in a vertical, so stage gate the vertical for seats and dollars. Build the client’s visualization with your technology, but your technology is not the product. The products you develop in the bowling alley are there to carry your technology and get it adopted.

Moore’s bowling ally does tell us to get eight clients in different, widely separated verticals. You will sum them going into the horizontal market, so spread them out.

Vertical markets are a risk and cost reduction strategy. You can bootstrap without VC money. Don’t let VC money slow you down. With an appropriate marketure, requirements elicitation processes, and a product roadmap organized around minimal marketable functionality, yoiu can build your market, company, technology, and product simultaneously and symmetrically.

No, linearity in business is a tragic myth. Make no claim beyond the walls of your current market. Know that market transitions happen even in the horizontal market. Linearity leads to such advice as listening to the voice of the customer, which has driven enough companies into the ditch. Non-linearity is approaching. Non-linearity is the constant. Non-linearity is the change that you must be ready for. When the environment changes, its too late to talk about change.

Yeah, I said. You kids have to learn to do it the old fashioned way they did it before they new economy and Silicon Valley. Bootstrap for years!

I understand what you meant, but would like note that even “internal” use of this “vertical” terminology often colors people’s attitude towards their markets (vertical vs. horizontal). Before long this can spill out into external communications with some pretty horrific results.

So I’d still rather refer to “industries” and “markets”.

The next few posts will make this clear.

steve

To insiders in any market, the very use of the word reveals an outsider who does not understand their industry and tries to frame it in comparison to some largely irrelevant “horizontals”. Competing with such companies is pure pleasure – just harp on their mis-understandings of the market.

There are no verticals, there are industries and markets.