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“Speed is the only moat” - Varun, Co-founder Windsurf
A moat is what protects your business from competitors once you start winning. It’s the thing that makes it hard to copy you—or at least, not worth the effort. Just like a castle’s moat kept enemies out, a startup’s moat keeps disruption out.
Classic moats include network effects (your product improves the more people use it), proprietary technology or intellectual property (you've built something others can’t legally replicate), brand equity (people trust you more than a new player), and economies of scale (you can offer more for less). These all take time, traction, and capital to build—and most of them show up after you have product-market fit, not before.
Investors are betting on your ability to win and keep winning. A good moat means lower risk and higher upside. It signals that you’re not just a flash in the pan. If you don’t have a moat yet, they want to at least see a plan for one.
But here’s the truth: in early-stage companies, your moat is usually a mirage. So what investors are really looking for is: can you move faster than the next ten clones?
Nope. Not consciously. But they do care about what moats produce: better products, lower costs, more value, and faster updates. Customers don’t say, “I use this because of their strong defensibility strategy.” They just say, “This works better for me than anything else.”
Here's the real shift: speed is your moat. Not later—right now.
You're not trying to out-patent or out-brand anyone in the early days. You're trying to out-learn, out-ship, and out-adjust. AI just cranks that dial up.
Anyone with a weekend and GPT-4 can clone the basics. Your edge? You iterate faster than they can even organize a Figma file.
This isn’t about breaking stuff. It's about learning in public. Every ship is a rep. Every tweak builds compound insight. That's your wall. That's your moat.
And let’s be honest—if you’re using AI and still slow? That’s not a tech problem. That’s your problem. Push. Post. Pivot. Repeat.
Use these prompts to operationalize your speed-as-moat advantage—and get smarter about how your competitors are defending their turf:
Find slow spots in your startup and speed them up.
Audit my current workflows. Where am I wasting time that could be saved using AI, automation, or delegation?Create a 3-day velocity experiment using AI.
Help me plan a 72-hour sprint where I ship 3 versions of my idea using AI tools. Include launch, feedback, and iteration steps.Pressure-test your moat by simulating a copycat.
Act as a fast-moving competitor. Rebuild my startup’s core features using free tools and AI. What would you launch in a week?Break down what makes your competitors hard to beat.
Give me a breakdown of the likely moats my top 3 competitors have. What are they doing that keeps others out?Explore how moats work (or don’t) across your whole market.
What types of moats are common in my industry? How do they typically form, and where are they weakest?A moat protects your business, but in the early days, speed is the only one you’ve got.
You’re already building in public. AI just makes the loop faster.
Speed up your work, study your rivals, and stress-test what’s defensible with these prompts
Speed and execution at scale are essential, yes—but for early-stage startups, there’s more to it. Incumbents can sometimes maintain high-performing teams and move fast, but they’re often weighed down by existing products and legacy obligations. The early startups that win are the ones that combine strong execution with sharp product thinking.
Moats matter, or do they? Let's take a quick look at how moats have changed, esp in the age of Vibe Founders. For the past 5-10 years or so, I've argued with investors and naysayers alike that true moats, the IP/Network versions most prefer, are few and far between. Now we know it's true, execution at scale is the best moat possible. https://paragraph.com/@vibefounders/on-moats-and-speed