Eastwood Ravine: Crossing Uncrossable Chasms

Last week, we explored Napoleon’s Nightmare—when businesses mistake a small leap for something big, finding limited upside and unlimited anguish. This week, we shift gears to something rare, daunting, and extremely cool: Eastwood Ravine.

Geoffrey Moore taught us about Crossing the Chasm—that treacherous gap between early adopters and mainstream success. But what happens when the gap is more than a chasm—when it’s a ravine so deep, so wide, it seems uncrossable? Few companies attempt this kind of crossing. Even fewer survive. Those that do, like Amazon and Netflix, reshape our lives.

What do we call this type of chasm? Eastwood Ravine.

Eastwood Ravine is located just outside Hill Valley, and it was once called Clayton Ravine, after Ms. Clayton, the schoolteacher that went plunging off the unfinished tracks aboard a runaway train. She died a fiery death in the chasm below.

History changed though, when “Clint Eastwood” saved Ms. Clayton, put himself on that train, and died that fiery death in her stead.

Except he didn’t.

He survived. He crossed that chasm. And he made a leap that went even further than the other side, into another dimension.

Yes, this is the plot of the 90’s sci-fi classic Back to the Future III. Yes, the train did in fact plunge into the rocks below. But Marty, or “Clint,” didn’t. Because he had a secret, a conspiracy, and a DeLorean that was equipped with the flux capacitor. The secret? Time travel of course, that’s what got him into the old west to begin with. What Marty understood that others didn’t, was that where he was going, those train tracks across the ravine were completed. He could see what others couldn’t. The unfinished tracks that looked like certain death? They were a path to the future.

This type of crossing is rare, but it does happen.

When Amazon started selling books online in 1994, many traditional retailers and analysts mocked the idea. Barnes & Noble’s CEO dismissed them as “Amazon.toast.” The conventional wisdom was that people wouldn’t trust online shopping and would always prefer physical bookstores. Jeff Bezos understood two key insights others missed: The internet would enable infinite shelf space, and customer convenience would trump the traditional retail experience.

When Netflix started with DVD-by-mail in 1997, Blockbuster famously laughed them off. In 2000, Netflix offered to sell itself to Blockbuster for $50 million; Blockbuster declined. Netflix founder Reed Hastings had recognized two crucial trends: digital distribution would reshape entertainment, and people really hate late fees. While Blockbuster saw late fees as a profit center, Netflix saw them as a customer pain point that would drive adoption of a new model.

Peter Thiel, who crossed his own Eastwood Ravine with the PayPal mafia, said “Every great business is built around a secret that’s hidden from the outside. A great company is a conspiracy to change the world.” Their secret? Sending money could and should be as easy as sending an email.

Bezos could see the tracks. Hastings had a secret.

The DeLorean being pushed to 88 MPH across Eastwood Ravine — The DeLorean being pushed to 88 MPH

Like the DeLorean, hidden in Doc Browns barn, and then pushed onto the tracks in front of that “runaway” train. Marty had “a secret that’s hidden from the outside.” The other residents of Hill Valley, and even Jules Verne himself, couldn’t have dreamed up the plan that Marty and Doc had cooking.

They knew what made time travel possible, the flux capacitor, just so long as they could produce 1.21 gigawatts and get to 88 miles per hour.

The thing about crossing most chasms is once someone else does it, people quickly follow behind. They watch, take notes, borrow, steal, and they make their own jump, or just use the tracks that have been laid. But when it’s Eastwood Ravine, onlookers and copycats have already left you for dead, and by the time they realize what’s happened, it’s too late. The early and late majorities have made their decision, they’ll call it Eastwood Ravine no matter who else crosses, and the copycats are left with low margin laggards.

A leap that appears to be magic or luck, is made because of a gap in information and knowledge.

The companies that have that level of success have a meme, an idea, a secret they talk about internally, and it’s not until years later that others finally appreciate it. And even once those people appreciate it, they may still not understand it.

Many of them don’t even keep that secret under wraps. Even Beyond Amazon and Netflix, Microsoft, Tesla, Nvidia, and even Flynn family favorite Costco are all pretty transparent. They’ll tell you their secret. They’ll invite you in on the conspiracy. But like the citizens of Hill Valley, you’d be crazy to just take Doc at his word.

1.21 Gigawatts

The companies that successfully cross a chasm like Eastwood Ravine don’t just have a product—they have an insight. They see the world clearly. They know something others don’t know or don’t believe.

Of course, you still need timing. You still need to reach 88 miles per hour before you hit the rocks below. You still need plutonium or Mr. Fusion, separate innovations are required to produce 1.21 gigawatts of electricity, powering the flux capacitor into the future. But if those pieces align, the payoff is enormous. You make the jump, the tracks appear, and you reach the future you’ve predicted.

Netflix saw beyond DVDs to the streaming revolution. A revolution that involves producing their own content. But how did they know what to make? How did they know what people would watch and like? They’d use their decades of data about what people do watch and like.

Was that their plan from the start? If you are asking that, we’ve made progress. I don’t know the answer, but that is exactly the type of secret we are talking about.

Make the jump and the tracks will appear.

And by working towards that distant future, they were creating solutions to tomorrow’s problems.

Before you rev up the DeLorean, before you take that big leap, ensure you have a clear vision of what’s on the other side. Because while everyone in Hill Valley knows about Clint Eastwood, only Marty, Doc, and Ms. Clayton know what really happened.

They know that Clint didn’t make it, because Marty did.