Dani Grant

Moats are dead and brand is the only moat. You know, Peter Thiel says like the best way to compete is to not compete. And I think that brand is the best way you can do that. Where if you occupy enough mental space for a category, no one is searching for an alternative. Like basically the strategy for startups right now is to be Coca-Cola. It's like, why do you drink Coca-Cola?

Moats are dead and brand is the only moat. You know, Peter Thiel says like the best way to compete is to not compete. And I think that brand is the best way you can do that. Where if you occupy enough mental space for a category, no one is searching for an alternative. Like basically the strategy for startups right now is to be Coca-Cola. It's like, why do you drink Coca-Cola?

Moats are dead and brand is the only moat. You know, Peter Thiel says like the best way to compete is to not compete. And I think that brand is the best way you can do that. Where if you occupy enough mental space for a category, no one is searching for an alternative. Like basically the strategy for startups right now is to be Coca-Cola. It's like, why do you drink Coca-Cola?

Not because of any like, like lock-in or anything. It's because it's Coca-Cola. I think that brand is the best moat out there this year.

Not because of any like, like lock-in or anything. It's because it's Coca-Cola. I think that brand is the best moat out there this year.

Not because of any like, like lock-in or anything. It's because it's Coca-Cola. I think that brand is the best moat out there this year.

So my co-founder and I met when we were product managers at Cloudflare and we loved working together so much so that After I left Cloudflare, we did like a hackathon weekend trip to Colorado. We got like a cabin in the woods and we like hacked on startup ideas. And we just knew we were going to start something together. We just didn't know what.

So my co-founder and I met when we were product managers at Cloudflare and we loved working together so much so that After I left Cloudflare, we did like a hackathon weekend trip to Colorado. We got like a cabin in the woods and we like hacked on startup ideas. And we just knew we were going to start something together. We just didn't know what.

So my co-founder and I met when we were product managers at Cloudflare and we loved working together so much so that After I left Cloudflare, we did like a hackathon weekend trip to Colorado. We got like a cabin in the woods and we like hacked on startup ideas. And we just knew we were going to start something together. We just didn't know what.

And so what does any enterprising, you know, mid-20s person do when they know they're going to start something is they create a notion of ideas. And we filled it with all sorts of ideas we had over the course of like a couple weeks. And there are now 141 ideas in this notion. And we got super lucky because here's what happened.

And so what does any enterprising, you know, mid-20s person do when they know they're going to start something is they create a notion of ideas. And we filled it with all sorts of ideas we had over the course of like a couple weeks. And there are now 141 ideas in this notion. And we got super lucky because here's what happened.

And so what does any enterprising, you know, mid-20s person do when they know they're going to start something is they create a notion of ideas. And we filled it with all sorts of ideas we had over the course of like a couple weeks. And there are now 141 ideas in this notion. And we got super lucky because here's what happened.

We had like a call scheduled to go through our notion and pick what startup to start. And before we could even open this doc, we just started gossiping about our old team and talking about this crazy like PM engineer process. that was happening right now in the team. It was like, it was early COVID.

We had like a call scheduled to go through our notion and pick what startup to start. And before we could even open this doc, we just started gossiping about our old team and talking about this crazy like PM engineer process. that was happening right now in the team. It was like, it was early COVID.

We had like a call scheduled to go through our notion and pick what startup to start. And before we could even open this doc, we just started gossiping about our old team and talking about this crazy like PM engineer process. that was happening right now in the team. It was like, it was early COVID.

No one was set up for remote and engineers were like asked to be like updating like spreadsheets and JIRAs. It was insanity. And we're like, wait, should we just solve a problem that we have faced ourselves instead of any of these ideas?

No one was set up for remote and engineers were like asked to be like updating like spreadsheets and JIRAs. It was insanity. And we're like, wait, should we just solve a problem that we have faced ourselves instead of any of these ideas?

No one was set up for remote and engineers were like asked to be like updating like spreadsheets and JIRAs. It was insanity. And we're like, wait, should we just solve a problem that we have faced ourselves instead of any of these ideas?

And I've got to tell you, I am so happy we did because the thing that I did not appreciate on day one of being a founder is that if this goes to plan, this is actually probably the next 10, 15 years of your life.

And I've got to tell you, I am so happy we did because the thing that I did not appreciate on day one of being a founder is that if this goes to plan, this is actually probably the next 10, 15 years of your life.