Ask HN: What's actually "defendable" about web startups these days?

This question does not exactly keep me up at night, but if it did, my answer might sound like "Our most important product isn't the one we're selling, it is the processes we use to make and market the product(s) we're selling and will sell in the future, and those processes are non-trivial and so ridiculously superior to what the competition will be using that they will <i>never</i> catch up."<p>IMVU or Zygna are good examples of this. Neither has a patent wall around them, either is about as well defended as any business based on computers can be. The reason is that, while you can make your own Big-Chested-Anime-Chicks-Farming-Together-Chat-Client in not a whole lot of time, you won't have their creation process... and they're learning so fast about their markets that they will <i>bury you</i>. The advantages they get from the whole lean startup thing -- fast learning and fast production -- are compounding, because it buys them more traditional advantages like network effects, kickstarts their virality, gives them money to buy insane amounts of FB advertising, etc etc.<p>This is totally not limited to these market segments. (If either of them were in search-focused verticals I'd tell you about how this helps build the self-reinforcing authority cycle for SEO, too.)

What keeps Coke defensible from Pepsi?<p>Sure, "execution" is a loaded word, but if you break it down, a successful startup is a magical combination of marketing, product, design, distribution, customer service, analytics, market knowledge, positioning, network effects etc. All of which, when executed well, strengthens and reinforces a brand that the end-consumer loves to rally around.<p>Your IP should be a means to this end, not the other way around.

The only answer is the culture behind a decision. If you're doing things right you are following a "plan" and solving a problem, a feature is your catch about a possible solution. If your competitors copy it, you did your work right, it means that you have a good knowledge of your userbase and generally of the domain. The problem will never be a competitor copying you, it's if a competitor implements your next feature before of you and the solution you're coming up with is the same. At that point, you're not managing the rules of the game anymore.

How about their customers/users or comprehensiveness of data? The biggest thing that stops me moving from Facebook to competitor X is that all my friends are on Facebook and not competitor X. Similarly, would you prefer to use Foursquare with stuff and people already in your city, or competitor Y in which your city is barren?<p>Of course this leaves many startups out, since this doesn't apply to them.

Why can't someone answer with "our team" or "they way we execute"? If your competitor is always a step behind you copying features you wrote last month, doesn't that guarantee that you'll always be ahead of them?

not much. some stuff is defensible, but generally, success seems to comes from being innovative and having a good team that executes well.