There's an exercise I run with operators that flushes out a lot of wishful thinking

There's an exercise I run with operators that flushes out a lot of wishful thinking.

The moat audit.

For each thing your business does, ask: would a well-funded competitor with three years and decent talent be able to replicate this?

If yes, it's not a moat. It might be valuable. It might be hard work. It might even be a competitive edge today. But it's not durable.

If no, it's a moat.

Here's what fails the test most often.

Product features. Three engineers and 18 months can usually replicate a spec sheet. Features get copied. Roadmaps converge. The moat closes.

A talented sales team. Talent gets poached. Comp plans get matched. A great rep is a person, not an asset.

A funded marketing budget. Money can be matched by money. Whoever has more, wins. That's not a moat. That's a war chest.

Here's what passes the test.

Distribution depth that took ten years to build. Distributor networks, integration partnerships, OEM relationships. Hard to copy in any timeline.

Customer trust accumulated through hundreds of repeat transactions. The vendor the buyer chooses without thinking. Built over time, not bought.

Switching cost embedded in the customer's workflow. Once your product is wired into how they operate, the cost of removing you is higher than the cost of tolerating you.

Brand authority built through years of a consistent point of view. The operators who've published for a decade. Their brand is the moat.

Scale economies in operations the competitor can't match. Lower cost to serve, faster turnaround, better SLAs.

Most B2B companies overestimate their product moat and underestimate the moats they could be building. The audit forces honesty.

Run it once a year. The results change what you spend your roadmap on.