There is a well-known curve called the "Technology Adoption Life Cycle" that describes how new technologies are adopted. It's popular in startups, where the key to growth is to get your product in front of the "early majority". They are the target group that make or break your startup.
But this post is not about startups. I want to share two ways how I recently started to think about this graph and why you should strive to be in at least the early adopters group.
For better representation, the list below describes the characteristics of the population in each of the groups:
- Innovators: First to adopt new technologies, motivated by enthusiasm and willingness to take risks.
- Early Adopters: Visionaries who seek significant improvements and are open to experimenting with new ideas.
- Early Majority: Pragmatic individuals who prefer proven, practical solutions and adopt technology after early adopters.
- Late Majority: Skeptical of new technologies, they wait until innovations are widely accepted and low-risk.
- Laggards: The most conservative group, resistant to change, and the last to adopt new technologies, if at all.
If we take the first curve and draw the percentage of market share of that same technology on it, we get another interesting graph. This one is perhaps even more important for understanding just how important it is to be early in the "Technology Adoption Cycle".
The market share's percentage change is clearly the steepest in the early majority group, while people who come later don't experience such an aggressive growth. Based on the groups' characteristics, this makes perfect sense.
Inverting the logic, this is exactly why you should strive to be earlier. Thinking mathematically as well as practically, you will gain a significant advantage over the rest if you're an innovator or early adopter.
Medicine
The first area where I think this curve also applies, is medicine. It's characteristically very resistant to change. Eric Topol describes it as being sclerotic.
On the one hand, it makes perfect sense that medical guidelines and procedures only change if it's certain that there's no harm for patients. On the other hand, progress and change thus isn't as quick as in some other areas.
Being an innovator or early adopter is thus unimaginably hard. However, these are certainly the people that are rewarded most at the end.
One of the inspirations to think this way was Atul Gawande's book Better. A surgeon himself, he left 5 suggestions to doctors at the end of his book, the final one being:
MY SUGGESTION NUMBER five, my final suggestion for a life in medicine, was: Change. In medicine, just as in anything else people do, individuals respond to new ideas in one of three ways. A few become early adopters, as the business types call them. Most become late adopters. And some remain persistent skeptics who never stop resisting. [...] Nonetheless, make yourself an early adopter. Look for the opportunity to change. I am not saying you should embrace every new trend that comes along. But be willing to recognize the inadequacies in what you do and to seek out solutions. As successful as medicine is, it remains replete with uncertainties and failure. This is what makes it human, at times painful, and also so worthwhile.
One of the areas I think is on the cusp of being adopted in everyday practice is AI. And for a couple of years now, the talk in medicine is that radiologists will be the first to start actively using AI. The differences between them will be massive - some will use it in their practice and others won't. Laggards will almost certainly become extinct, while early adopters will reap the rewards.
Financial aspect
The second reason why I think it's a good idea to be an early adopter are financial rewards. There are countless other examples, but Bitcoin sticks with me the most.
Early adopters of Bitcoin are today wealthier than most of us can imagine. If you bought $80 worth of Bitcoin in July 2010 at $0.08 per Bitcoin, it's worth more than $90 million today (or whatever 1000 Bitcoins is worth at the moment). I don't think there's ever been a better return on investment.
But in July 2010, only a few people actually heard of Bitcoin and it was very hard to come across it. You had to mine it yourself or buy it from very few exchanges at that time, then store it on your own terms. The innovators and early adopters did it anyway and were rewarded.
There are countless other companies that serve as good examples. More recent ones include Tesla, Nvidia, Novo Nordisk.
These countless examples also tell us something else - occurrences of rapid growth and adoption are continuously appearing. It's up to each individual to become and remain open-minded to not ignore the trends we see every day. History teaches us that opportunities in all areas remain hidden in plain sight.
So, to improve the chances of success and have an advantage over the majority, be bold and make it a mission to become an early adopter. This is my 2025 resolution.