... deep subject matter expertise . The classic playbook is broken. Software startups used to win by moving faster than incumbents on product. Now if you can build an MVP in four weeks with two people, so can your many competitors. The crowding problem is real. So what's actually defensible? Marc Andreessen put it simply: the moat is not the model . It's the product, integration, distribution, and captured value. And according to QED Investors, moats exist only for companies that ... ... healthcare, legal) still have real moats because the barrier isn't code anymore, it's trust, compliance, and institutional switching costs. I'd add to the VC question: the math changes depending on whether you're building horizontal tools vs