disruptive-innovationlisted

# Disruptive Innovation ## Overview Most incumbents fail not because they make bad decisions, but because they make good ones. Clayton Christensen found that leading firms listened to their best customers, invested in high-margin segments, and were displaced anyway. The pattern: incumbents overshoot mainstream customer needs, creating a price window at the low end that a new entrant can enter profitably — and the incumbent cannot match without cannibalizing its own margins. Disruptors enter there, accumulate resources, and migrate upward. Two paths exist: **low-end disruption** targets price-sensitive existing customers who are over-served; **new-market disruption** creates consumption among people who couldn't previously participate at all. Compose with neighbors: [s-curve-technology-adoption](../s-curve-technology-adoption/SKILL.md) to assess incumbent vulnerability; [pmf-crossing-the-chasm](../pmf-crossing-the-chasm/SKILL.md) after identifying the entry point; [blue-ocean-strategy](../blue-ocean-strategy/SKILL.md) when the attacker wants to reshape value dimensions; [second-curve](../second-curve/SKILL.md) for the incumbent's response problem. ## When to Use Apply when: founder choosing market entry to avoid head-to-head; incumbent assessing low-price entrant threat; investor evaluating startup structural advantage; product team defining what to deliberately exclude from MVP. **When NOT to use:** market requires absolute performance / no "good enough" threshold (air