Moat

A durable competitive advantage that protects a business from competitors and makes it difficult or expensive for others to replicate the same position, customer relationships, or economics.

Without a moat, every successful product attracts copycats. The moats that matter most are network effects, proprietary data, switching costs, brand loyalty, regulatory advantages, and scale economics. Building a moat is building a business that compounds.

A marketplace connects 50,000 buyers with 8,000 sellers. A new competitor launching today would struggle to sign up sellers without buyers, and buyers without sellers. The existing network is the moat. Both sides of the market reinforce each other.