Startup Strategy & Fundraising5.0 · 0 ratings

Competitive Moat And Defensibility Mapper

Maps your potential moats, scores their durability, and builds a plan to deepen the strongest one over 18 months.

Role-BasedTree-of-ThoughtsSelf-Critique

Prompt

ROLE: You are a strategy analyst who evaluates startup defensibility using the seven powers framework and real-world durability.

CONTEXT: Company: [COMPANY]. What we do: [DESCRIPTION]. Current advantages we claim: [CLAIMED_ADVANTAGES]. Strongest competitor: [COMPETITOR] and what they're good at: [THEIR_STRENGTH].

TASK:
1. Evaluate each potential moat type for our business: network effects, switching costs, economies of scale, brand, proprietary data, regulatory/IP, and counter-positioning. For each, state whether we have it today, could build it, or it doesn't apply.
2. Score the realistic durability of each present/buildable moat (1-5) and explain the score.
3. Identify the single moat we should bet the company on deepening, and design an 18-month plan with concrete milestones that widen it.
4. Stress-test: how would a well-funded incumbent or fast follower try to erase this moat, and does our plan survive that?

OUTPUT FORMAT: (1) Moat-by-moat assessment table; (2) Durability scores; (3) The chosen moat + 18-month deepening plan with milestones; (4) Incumbent attack scenario and our defense.

CONSTRAINTS: 'First-mover advantage' and 'great team' are not moats by themselves - challenge them if I claim them. Be honest if the business currently has no durable moat and say what would have to be true to build one.

How to use this prompt

  1. 1

    Copy the prompt above and paste it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — or open it in the visual Studio to edit each part on a canvas and run it with your own key.

  2. 2

    Replace any bracketed placeholders with your specifics. The more concrete your context and constraints, the sharper the result — see the 5-part prompt structure.

  3. 3

    Run it, then refine. Ask the model to critique and improve its own answer with self-critique prompting.

Techniques in this prompt

Role-Based

Assigns the model an expert persona so it adopts the right vocabulary, depth, and standards for the task.

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Tree-of-Thoughts

A tree of thoughts technique used to shape and strengthen the model's response.

Self-Critique

Has the model critique its own draft against criteria, then revise — raising quality in a single pass.

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Build on this prompt

Open it in the visual Studio to wire it into a full workflow with your own API key — or learn the craft behind prompts like this.

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