The barriers to creating software are lower than ever. You can now vibe code new products in hours using tools like Lovable and Bolt.new. That’s good news for innovation, and even better for access. Open-source models, no-code platforms, and off-the-shelf AI have made it faster and cheaper than ever to get an idea off the ground.
This shift is opening doors for people who’ve historically been shut out of tech. And when something is cheaper to build, it’s often cheaper to bring to market, meaning tools can reach more of the people who actually need them.
But in practice, this means building is no longer the biggest challenge for startups. Staying out in front is. Retention, customer loyalty, and scaling revenue are the real hurdles now.
A clever idea or beautiful product is no longer enough. The moment you launch, someone else could clone your offering – often faster, cheaper, and louder. For many years, founders have been focused on differentiation: the thing that makes them special right now. But in this new landscape, founders will be forced to give more thought to defensibility: what will keep your startup unique in 10 years, 5 years, or even next year?
That’s where “moats” come in: shields that protect your business from competitors over time. The things that make you hard to copy, hard to replace, and hard to overlook. Some moats are defensive, built to keep rivals at bay. Others are offensive, giving you the tools to charge ahead, attract more customers, and deepen user relationships.
Founders will need to start thinking about these moats much earlier and use them to fortify their position, before they’re under siege. In other words, it’s time to get medieval about moat building. So where to begin?
Driving “stickiness” through social graphs
Communities are tough to replicate. One of the best ways to make your customers stick around is by building a product that taps into users’ social networks, making them feel personally invested. When your product encourages connections – whether through recommendations, collaborations, or incentives – it creates a sticky ecosystem that’s hard for competitors to steal.
It’s one of the reasons I was drawn to babysitting app Bubble (an Ada Ventures portfolio company) as both an investor and a parent. The app allows you to add your friends and see which sitters they’ve used and would recommend, adding a social referral component that makes the service feel personal and trustworthy.
Market-leading apps like Duolingo, where users can compete on language-learning scores, or Strava, where runners can compare their times and share achievements, also tap into the power of social graphs to nurture loyal users. These social connections make these products drive social capital, making them much harder to discard.
Making hardware and software click
Another interesting approach to defensibility is integrating hardware and software in a way that makes them feel inseparable and essential to your product. While the hardware itself might not be inherently defensible, the software layer can make it stickier, creating a more compelling and harder-to-replicate offering. Take Oura: a physical, stylish gadget that works hand-in-hand with an app that turns raw data into personalised health insights. It’s the interplay between the hardware and software that creates a dynamic, tailored experience that gets smarter over time, making the whole system hard to copy.
For startups, the key is to make the combination of hardware and software feel indispensable to users. It’s not just about having a functional gadget or app; it’s about ensuring both elements work in harmony to deliver a solution users can’t – or wouldn’t want to – seek elsewhere.
Using the power of proprietary data and partnerships
Proprietary data is one of the most powerful moats you can build. When you gather unique insights that others can’t get their hands on, you’re not just collecting numbers, you’re creating an asset that’s nearly impossible to replicate. It could be anything from user behaviour patterns to clinical trial data. This information doesn’t just help you fend off competitors, it can also be the secret ingredient that lets you refine your product and stay ahead of the curve.
And with this kind of valuable data in hand, exclusive partnerships become an even more powerful tool. By leveraging your unique insights, you can form strategic alliances with key players, from suppliers to academic institutions, celebrities and industry leaders, creating barriers for competitors. It’s not a strategy for every startup, but if you can land the right exclusive agreements, you’ll lock down your position and make it much harder for others to break in behind you.
Choosing the right backers
Founders shouldn’t be digging out their moats alone. The best investors don’t just write a check and disappear – they get in the trenches with you.
Think about potential investors’ experience and network. Can they provide warm intros to help land exclusive partnerships? Do they have the technical expertise to advise on product development? Can they help you hire top talent or connect you with a PR team that understands your messaging? Beyond strategy, are they able to empathise with the founder journey from first-hand experience? The right investors should help you to deepen your moat.
That said, make sure you’ve thought about defensibility before seeking investment as investors will want to know why you believe your startup is futureproofed. Dedicate a slide to your moat in your pitch deck and be ready to explain why your idea isn’t just good, but defensible in the long term.
Protecting your edge with legal safeguards
Patents and copyrights can be helpful defensive moats, especially for deep tech companies. They won’t be necessary or relevant for every startup, but if you’re building something where legally protecting your ideas is an option, it should definitely be part of the conversation. The practice isn’t just about keeping copycats at bay; it can also signal to investors and potential partners that you’ve thought long-term about owning your unique value proposition. In fact, research from the European Patent Office suggests that startups with secured patents and trademarks are up to 10x more likely to raise seed or early-stage funding.
Legal protections can also keep you safe from being blindsided by someone else patenting your idea and suing for infringement. But, again, patents and copyrights are not always the right fit for every business – whether they make sense depends on the nature of your product, market, and long-term strategy.
Moats aren’t built overnight. The water might already be there, but it takes deliberate, human effort to turn it into something strategic. If it’s easy for the competition to cross, your moat’s too shallow and it’s time to dig deeper. Whether you’re playing offense or defense, I’m looking for founders who are intentional about what truly sets them apart.
