In high-tech industry, innovators, also known as technology enthusiasts or techies, are the initial costumers of new technologies and innovation in so-called early markets. They start the fire for those products, even helping to improve them. For those kinds of people, open innovation is a great opportunity since it has provided collaboration spaces, which are the first steps for new products to arise with their own small market, and like such happens with crowdsourcing platforms.
As Geoffrey Moore points out in Crossing the Chasm, whether they are introverts working in isolation, or collaborators organized in crowdsourcing platforms, they share recognizable characteristics as the gatekeepers of innovative products, like the following ones:
- First ones in recognizing value. They are the ones who first appreciate the competitive advantages and value of new products towards those established in the market.
- Passionates. They have the interest to learn about those new technologies and are also their best critics, spending hours in making them work better and evaluating them.
- First players and gatekeepers. They want to be the first ones in getting the new stuff caring less about its functionality and having the capacity to recognize their potential.
Additionally, as Geoffrey Moore stats, innovators have their own special requirements regarding a new technology.
- They want the truth about the new product.
- They want to have access to a technically knowledgeable person whenever they have a technical problem.
- They want to be the first ones in testing a new technology and they want it in the cheapest way.
