Don't bother building a moat

It seems like folks are always dropping platitudes about the importance of building a moat. But what does that actually mean for indie hackers?

Big companies have moats for days. Deep ones with water and crocodiles and drawbridges. Is that even a possibility for us? I can say that I’ve (unintentionally) created some (very) small moats in my day, but water and crocs are hard to come by.

I looked into what other indie hackers are doing and here's the short answer: Yes we can. But maybe we shouldn't.

Types of moats

There are a lot of moats out there. Some apply to indie hackers. Some don't. We can break these loosely into business moats and personal moats.

Personal moats

This type of moat applies to indie hackers in a big way. I'd argue that it's the most important for us.

Think about it, what founders have name recognition among their customers? The top .0000001% of founders — Jobs, Musk, Bezos, etc. — and then us. I can't name the founder of any business in the middle ground. So unless you’re competing with Apple, you’ve got the advantage. You’re an expert. And you’re accessible.

So you should be a big part of your business's brand. Build in public. Emails should come from you. You should tweet from your personal account, not your business's. Put a "built by" in the footer of your website. You get the idea — just generally make sure your name and face are familiar to anyone who comes into contact with your product. And likewise, make sure anyone who comes into contact with you will get to know your product.

@jamesskylor: Well the newest type of moat and monopoly is a personal moat. A personal monopoly. A personal monopoly is the unique intersection of your skills, knowledge, personality, and experiences that nobody else can compete with. It’s like a personal brand with a following - people who listen to you.

Business moats

While I think personal moats are the best thing for most of us to invest our time into, there are plenty of others. Let's start with the ones that indie hackers can leverage.

Moats that are worth a shot for indie hackers

• Content: We all know companies with this type of moat. Think Hubspot. Having a ton of content that hits the top of the SERP is a solid approach… but it's tough for most indie hackers to get there.
• Communities: Another great way to do it, and it's accessible to indie hackers. But note that this is time-intensive.
• Tech: You're probably not going to have a tech moat in the way that Apple has a tech moat. But you can build tech that is advanced enough to create a small moat. And the earlier/faster you build it, the harder it'll be for competitors to catch up.
• Brand: This includes the personal moat — indie hackers build these moats best by building in public IMO. But either way, this is a nice and accessible one, assuming you can get traction.
• Distribution: When most companies talk about a distribution moat, it's about how many people they're reaching. For indie hackers, it should be about who they're reaching — niche down and build a moat of distribution within that niche.
• Network effects: This is when every new user adds value to your product — think Tinder. If you get traction and you happen to have a product that can leverage these effects, then this is a solid moat. Unfortunately, you may run into that famous chicken/egg situation where your products need users to be valuable but your product needs to be valuable to get users.

@csallen: For indie hackers, the easiest moat is often network effects. Make it so every additional customer improves the quality of your product for other customers. Communities are a simple way to do this.

• Customer relationships and loyalty: Do right by your customers. Indie hackers have an advantage here. Make that personal connection and get them invested in your product.

I think that last one is really worth emphasizing. Tech moats, content moats, distribution moats… they're all pretty tough to do. But creating relationships just requires being available, proactive, and kind. Like I said above, indie hackers have an advantage when they get close and personal with customers because, generally speaking, founders don't do that. So focus on that relationship. The more invested your customers are in you and your business, the less likely they are to churn, and the more likely they are to recommend you. Relationships are a great moat that anyone can create quite easily.

A quick note on content moats. If you're going to go HAM on it and make it happen, consider a hub-and-spoke model where you link from a central hub of more general content to increasingly specific content. This is great for SEO and really helpful for your readers. Glossaries are an option too.

@IamRafiqul: If you're in an industry that deals with many technical and complex terms, then consider building glossary pages. Even better is to create an individual glossary page for each term and make it informative for the users. Next, try to find an angle to include your product or service on the glossary page. Add only if it is relevant to the glossary page. Focus on internal linking between the glossary pages.

And here are few other moats mentioned by other indie hackers:

@ggcdn: Another is discounts for multi-product subscriptions. Users like discounts, and they hate losing them. If you offer a suite of services, and they find a better alternative for one, the loss of discount might be enough to keep them as a customer.

@wirewalker: Sometimes first to market is effective… Sometimes you can lock up a market by establishing critical strategic alliances.

@qwurty: Pretty much anything can be copied. The only moat you really have is the time it takes to build the product, which will dissuade most if it takes more than a year to build.

@simplisticallysimple: The biggest deterrence is that you're so far ahead in terms of feature set and also revenue but more importantly "mind share/goodwill" among your users that they decide it's not worth the fight.

@sohamsoarkar: the tech is never the moat. someone ripping off 100% of your app should be at the bottom of your things to worry about. set up distribution, set up better UX, set up better CS

The best moats for indie hackers?

• Personal moats
• Customer relationships and loyalty
• Niche distribution
• Content

Moats to ignore

• Intellectual property: Think patents. This is a big one in the general business arena, but not so much for indie hackers. Don't waste your time on this unless you're one of the few who is doing something truly unique. And even then, this is way easier for physical products. Software usually can't be patented.
• Low prices (economies of scale): For most businesses, lower prices require economies of scale, but for us, it's the opposite. We can be cheap because we're small. We can... but should we? We all know that racing to the bottom is a bummer of a tactic. The maxim, “charge more” is firmly ingrained in most of our minds by now, and for good reason.
• Product complexity: Most of us don't want to have a super complicated product. We want something small, focused, nimble, and niche. Let the big dogs have 30 features that cover every possible need of every possible market underwhelmingly. You can be overwhelmingly good at one thing. And sure, over time, add to it, but complexity should never be a focus.
• Regulatory: There is a type of moat created by businesses getting special treatment thanks to some law or regulation, but it's mostly for big biz.
• Data: This is an option but it requires that you have a huge amount of data and you know how to extract it meaningfully and then monetize it. This isn't usually going to be the way to go for indie hackers.

And it’s worth noting that not all moats are ethical, so I'd leave shady ones alone too.

@ggcdn: The first is some form of vendor lock-in. Basically, making it difficult for the user to switch to a competitor because their data is locked down. But its a pretty evil thing to do.

A quick reframe

Listing different types of moats like I just did makes it seem like it's possible to have multiple moats, but castles don't have multiple moats. They have one. Likewise, it's not about having a content moat and a tech moat, and a network effect moat, and a you-name-it moat ad infinitum.

The truth is that you're constantly building a moat, whether you're trying to or not. And every little thing you do adds a new crocodile to the mix. Got an MVP? Croc. Customers know your name? Croc. Writing lots of content? Croc. Got a killer product? Monster croc.

IMO that makes it all feel a little more manageable. And it brings me to the next point.

An unpopular opinion on moats: Don't focus on them

Here’s the thing about moats: The reason that they work is the reason why indie hackers shouldn’t focus on them. They work because they’re hard to build. And you’ve got more important things to worry about, like growing your business. So be nimble in the beginning. Don’t overfocus on building a moat.

Here’s the other thing about moats: As I alluded to above, they’re a natural byproduct of you doing good work. If you’re building a killer product, that will eventually become a moat. If you write good content, that will eventually become a moat. And so on.

So what I'm saying is this: Do what benefits your product and it will eventually become a moat. Don't waste time intentionally building that moat until your product is profitable, growing steadily, and just generally crushing it.

I say "unpopular", but these quotes from the venerable Mr. Courtland Allen, are right in line with this. And I think he nailed it, so I'll let him drop the mic.

@csallen: Most other moats are a waste of time for indie hackers. You aren't Google. You're not going to build tech nobody else can replicate. The best you can do is move fast and be good.

@csallen: For most indie hacker companies, moats aren't worth worrying about imo. You don't need to get to unicorn size and fend off the competition. Your #1 concern is just getting to profitability. That means growing, converting customers, and retaining them.

In fact, some of the scariest industries are the ones where people have strong moats, because they're the hardest to break into. It's probably better to enter an industry with weak moats (e.g. education), build a name for yourself, and then worry about moats later.

What did I miss?

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