Yes, it's technically possible to build a competitive moat without deep customer insights.
But it will take longer, cost more, and involve much more guesswork than most companies can afford—unless your CFO somehow wins the lottery and decides to share in their good fortune (aka, not gonna happen).
The truth is: Customer insights are the most overlooked shortcut to a durable, cost-efficient moat—especially in B2B.
Moats Are Expensive (and Often Overbuilt)
When most companies think about building a competitive moat, they reach for the big, expensive levers:
- Proprietary tech
- Long-term contracts
- Complex integrations
- Paid ecosystems
- Patents, platforms, and partner networks
All of that can work. But if you skip straight to "build the fortress" without understanding who you're trying to protect and why, you're not building a moat. You're burning money on guesswork.
Start with the Simplest Advantage: Know Your Customers Ridiculously Well
You don't need a patent portfolio to build an advantage. You need clarity.
Clarity about:
- What your best-fit customers actually care about
- What problems they're willing to pay to solve
- How they buy
- What they trust (and why they don't)
- Where your product fits in their workflow (and where it gets in the way)
When you have that kind of insight, everything gets easier: messaging, positioning, feature prioritization, pricing, sales enablement, retention plays, and, yes—your moat!
Customer insight doesn't just help you build a moat.
It helps you decide where to dig, how deep, and what to fill it with. (Murky water? Sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads?)
The Competitive Advantage AI Can't Give You
And no, ChatGPT can't give you that insight. Not really.
Even the best prompt in the world won't replace talking to your actual customers. Because those generative insights? Your competitors are reading them, too. They have access to the very same tools, and even though your prompt may be super spot on, you're still getting generalized, generic outputs.
You can't expect radically different outcomes if you build your customer growth strategy on the same prompt results as everyone else's.
What doesn't show up in AI-generated answers?
- The weird language your customer uses to describe their pain
- The little moments that build trust in a sales process
- The trigger events that tip them from "interested" to "buying"
- The conversational detour where they describe a personal experience that unlocks a truly unique insight
- The emotional reason they stay (or churn)
These are the kinds of insights that make your moat harder to replicate.
Unique Customer Insights are a Force Multiplier
Customer insight isn't just a "nice to have." It's a force multiplier for every growth decision you make.
It makes your marketing sharper.
- Your sales cycles shorter.
- Your roadmap tighter.
- Your messaging more trusted.
- Your margins healthier.
And yeah—you can still build your moat without it. But don't be surprised when it takes three times as long…Costs three times as much…
And the alligators turn on you instead of your competition. (eek!)
TL;DR: Want a Better Moat? Start with a Better Map.
If you want to build a competitive moat that works and doesn't bankrupt you in the process, start here:
- ✓ Talk to your customers.
- ✓ Listen to their language.
- ✓ Solve their real problems.
- ✓ Make their lives better.
That's the fastest, most efficient, most defensible path to real competitive advantage.
Need help understanding the buying decision criteria of your best fit customers?
Check out our Customer Growth Sprint, it's a 4-week engagement designed to give you the customer and messaging insights you need to be in the right channel at the right time with a message that moves a customer closer to, "Yes".