The New Competitive Moat: Effort
Generative AI raised the floor on content. It also raised the bar.
Generative AI raised the floor on content. It also raised the bar.
Most content fails now. Everywhere.
Google, AI search, LinkedIn — the same posts, the same takes, the same recycled frameworks rewritten by the same tools.
And the people still winning all have one thing in common: they’re doing the work nobody else wants to do.
The Winners
Look at who’s actually breaking through right now.
Everyone who invests time, money, and effort to produce something above and beyond.
Surveys
Peep Laja runs CMO surveys, a real data collection moat.
These research require high-level human input and budget to pay both the surveyed, analysts, and designers…
Original Research
Kevin Indig at Growth Memo publishes original research on AI Overviews.
Kevin is producing research on AI Search like a machine-gun, speed and great depth at incredible speeds!
Meta-Analysis & First Party Data
George Chasiotis through GrowthWaves by George Chasiotis built a research section into his newsletter where he posts both Minuttia’s own research and a meta-analysis of others.
Three different people.
Three different formats.
Same pattern underneath.
They’re not winning because they’re louder. They’re winning because what they publish costs real EFFORT to make.
The bar moved. Here’s what that actually means.
For ten years, content was a volume game.
Publish more, rank more, get more reach. The teams that produced the most won the most.
Sounds like simple math.
But, so many AI Slop programmatic sites have risen and died in a matter of months…
AI is good enough at:
Writing
Summarizing
Rewriting
Producing
Not great, many mistakes.
But, it can easily product a medium level posts, article, newsletter from scratch.
When everyone has access to AI, it stops being a differentiator.
The bar moved from volume to quality to effort.
AI Search likes first party data.
LinkedIn rewards information, templates, and playbooks.
Google rewards dwell time - people actually reading the pages.
Google also rewards real products - people who actually built something useful.
The 3 Most Powerful Moats
Building the next moat of marketing and product is hard, because the previous moat has been democratized.
Effort-led moats coming from experience, great ideas, and great implementations are what comes next!
1. Original ideas
A Point-of-View (POV) nobody else has:
An opinionated take.
A contrarian angle you actually believe.
A vulnerable take.
A deep truth.
AI can regurgitate existing opinions.
It can’t form new ones.
Original ideas are uncomfortable. They are also brandable.
Most teams don’t publish strong opinions because strong opinions are risky, and corporations like safety above else. You can’t build a brand on safe (in most occassions).
When a position is 100% safe and agreeable, it is also indistinguishable from all others.
2. First-Party Data
The thing AI literally cannot generate.
Your customer interviews.
Your funnel numbers.
Your churn cohort.
Your surveys of 200 subject-matter-experts.
Your experiment results from last quarter.
AI cannot create, but can fake real-world experiences.
I am often writing about SaaS and Tech, those are my deep expertise.
Companies, especially in tech sit on a treasure-trove of data and knowledge, but refuse to give it away as it’s “dangerous”.
Their competitors will copy.
Their competitors will steal.
Their competitors will keep up.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but there is a ton of ways to get competitive data and protectionism only works when you are a monopoly leader.
For anyone smaller, you are giving away your advantage.
Data is hard to get.
Your audience loves the data you have on their industry.
3. Real Experiments - Storytelling
“Here is what I tried and…”
…failed
…found out
…grew by X%
Build-in-public works because people buy-in the story.
You can of course fake it… but people thirst for these stories.
People who, as I said before, don’t take risk that easily.
They might not be in a position to take risks,
or don’t have the budget,
or don’t have the budget/capacity/resources.
(yes, sometimes they are also lazy or lack focus)
Those are thirsty for your experiences to use in their work.
A-Players VS B-Players
A-players run experiments, take risks, and publish. They are leaders in their niche and create a following.
B-players wait, follow, and read the experiments of A-players, implementing what works, after it has already worked and became public knowledge.
The New Moat: Why Effort Wins
Effort is a signal.
It’s the signal that you are a leader and an A-player.
Effort is how systems recognize a winner amongst a raised bar.
Effort scales the expensive way with
humans,
budget,
time,
thinking.
AI can help, you can run agents, automations, and templated reports. You can build tools and vibe code.
The moat is building an automation that works.
The moat is building a tool that doesn’t break.
The moat is building something that requires deliberation & thinking.
Most teams won’t pay that cost.
They’ll keep optimizing for output, keep racing AI to the bottom, keep wondering why their organic is flatlining and their LinkedIn reach is softer every month.
Effort is Rare
The moat isn’t that effort is rare.
The moat is that effort is expensive, deliberate, and human.