Design a moat analysis for your product's defensibility

Seven Moats — and Which Ones Actually Compound

A defensibility claim with no evidence is a marketing slogan. CB Insights' post-mortems on 400+ failed startups show that "got outcompeted" is the third most-cited failure cause — and in most cases the team could not articulate their moat before competition arrived. Marty Cagan's SVPG on product team quality makes the converse point: teams that can name their single load-bearing moat and fund it specifically outperform teams that vaguely assert "our product is better."

How the Design a moat analysis for your product's defensibility Prompt Works

The prompt forces a 0-3 score with evidence across seven archetypes, then compresses to the two moats worth investing in and the one at greatest risk of being replicated. The 120-word board narrative at the end is the forcing function — if you cannot compress the analysis into a paragraph, the strategy is still too vague to defend.

When to Use It

• A board meeting is asking you to articulate your defensibility.
• A competitor just raised a round and shipped a feature that looks like yours.
• You are preparing for a fundraise and need an "unfair advantage" slide.
• Your team debates features without anchoring on what compounds.
• You are entering a new segment and need to pick which moat to build first.

Common Pitfalls

• Scoring your own product 3/3 on everything. If your table has no 0s or 1s, you are writing marketing copy, not analysis. Force an honest score.
• Conflating features with moats. A feature can be copied in a quarter. A moat is the compounding advantage the feature creates.
• Skipping the 90-day shore-up plan. Naming the at-risk moat without a plan is a diagnosis, not a strategy.

Sources

• Why Startups Fail — CB Insights
• Good Product Team / Bad Product Team — Silicon Valley Product Group
• Product Strategy Overview — Silicon Valley Product Group
• The Product Strategy Stack — Reforge