S-curve

S-curve — the adoption path of a successful technology or category: slow early adoption, a steep middle as the mainstream arrives, saturation at the top. Pattern #8’s discipline is entering at the knee — after the curve is proven (globally or locally), before the steep section prices itself in. The emerging-market version (5.7) reads a category’s mature curve overseas as a preview of the local one starting 5–20 years behind.

First used in: 5.2 · The ten breakthrough patterns