Strategy & Moats
Defensibility, competition and how startups end.
Tech Entrepreneur
Idea
Find a problem worth solving and prove people have it. Where every first-time founder starts.
- First-Mover AdvantageWhether being first matters, and why the winner is often not the first.
MVP
Ship the smallest thing someone will use or pay for, and set up the company properly.
- Platform RiskDepending on another company's platform, API or app store that can change the rules.
Product-Market Fit
Get users who stay, pay and tell others; raise your first real round.
Core: start here
- Network EffectsA product becoming more valuable as more people use it.
- MoatA lasting advantage that keeps competitors from taking your customers or margins.
2 more product-market fit concepts
- AI Product DefensibilityWhat protects an AI-based product when the underlying models are available to everyone.
- Switching CostsThe effort and risk for a customer to leave you, which protects revenue.
Growth
Make acquisition and revenue repeatable; hire, raise and build a board.
Core: start here
- Exit StrategyHow founders and investors eventually turn equity into cash.
3 more growth concepts
- Counter-PositioningA business model that incumbents can't copy without hurting their own business.
- Economies of ScaleCosts per unit falling as you grow, which larger competitors can use against you.
- Regulatory RiskThe chance that laws or regulators change what your business can do.
Scale
Run the company: organization, moats, new markets and exits. Repeat-founder territory.
Core: start here
- International ExpansionEntering new countries: when to do it, entity setup, localization and local hires.
- Seven PowersHamilton Helmer's framework of seven sources of durable business advantage.
- Startup AcquisitionSelling the company to another company: process, valuation and what founders give up.
4 more scale concepts
- Acqui-hireAn acquisition mainly to hire the team, with the product often shut down.
- Aggregation TheoryHow internet platforms win by owning the user relationship and commoditizing suppliers.
- BlitzscalingPrioritizing speed over efficiency to win a market, and the risks of doing it.
- IPOListing the company's shares on a public stock exchange.