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Build Personal Moats

eriktorenberg.substack.com

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Re: Build Personal Moats

#31

Post by toast0 »

kshacker wrote: post #16
ChuckMcM wrote: post #10

I found this article difficult since "personal moat" is used as a target rather than as the side effect of a behavior. My experience here is limited of course to engineers and academics, generally technical people I've known over the years as they have grown professionally. The ones who have "moats" are the same people whose career choices have been deliberate rather than opportunistic. When I meet people who are del…

Oh there are so many of us with those FAX personal moats. You work on something, a framework, a data interchange thingy that only you know, and over time others keep moving but you become the one indispensable guy ... until one day you are not.

Also, things like you train people up on your job, but there's not really enough work for two FAX people, so they go off and do something else (and, usually, forget all the FAX nonsense).

And, your moat is fixing all the weird things, actually. And there's a lot of weird things, but the same one doesn't keep break, so how do you train someone to just fix whatever is broken that is nobody's job? You have to hire someone with that mindset, and just give them some tickets and a little bit of help here and there.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#32

Post by bonestormii_ »

0xEFF wrote: post #11
simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

Blah blah blah, of course, it would be amazing if everyone could build personal moats, but guess what, very few people can. There's one Elad Gil. One Tim Ferriss. If 10,000 people try, perhaps one of them could roughly replicate Tim's success. Personal moats are great. And incredibly tough to build. I prefer advice that is actionable, and can bring results for most people following that advice. This one is not advice…

s/personal moat/specialization /g Fixed it.

Well sed.

And yet, a moat is so much less than specialization. A moat is a blog! A moat is a following! A moat can be pure reputation, apparently.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#33

Post by Consultant32452 »

atoav wrote: post #29
stocknoob wrote: post #14

Look at the premise here: your life is a competition, a fight. People are coming for you and you'd better have a moat if you want to keep your position. Also, solve the ikigai which has 4 simultaneous variables to optimize. Protip: live simply, save at a decent rate, get financial freedom and you can solve the much simpler 3-dimensional ikigai.

I definitely take life a little easier than most of my colleagues. The more they doubt their own skill the more they revert to scheming and try to make themselves irreplaceable — they do things purely because they think these things will fly, never because it is just the thing they'd like to do. I always wondered if — maybe — it is me that is too playful, too improvised, too spontaneous: what if they are right and I…

There doesn't have to be a "right" that applies to everyone. If you are living a fulfilling life and making ends meet you are winning. Same for them.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#34

Post by bryanrasmussen »

interestingly enough at one time I built a personal moat, and then was so burnt out from the effort of building the moat (and maybe just a bit undisciplined to use it like I should have) that I went off to do other stuff for 4-5 years, then when I looked back my moat was no longer valuable, and I kicked myself for not taking advantage of it when I could.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#35

Post by mettamage »

stocknoob wrote: post #14

Look at the premise here: your life is a competition, a fight. People are coming for you and you'd better have a moat if you want to keep your position. Also, solve the ikigai which has 4 simultaneous variables to optimize. Protip: live simply, save at a decent rate, get financial freedom and you can solve the much simpler 3-dimensional ikigai.

> get financial freedom

How? In The Netherlands, I don't know how to do this other than working in the HFT industry.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#36

Post by itronitron »

atoav wrote: post #29
stocknoob wrote: post #14

Look at the premise here: your life is a competition, a fight. People are coming for you and you'd better have a moat if you want to keep your position. Also, solve the ikigai which has 4 simultaneous variables to optimize. Protip: live simply, save at a decent rate, get financial freedom and you can solve the much simpler 3-dimensional ikigai.

I definitely take life a little easier than most of my colleagues. The more they doubt their own skill the more they revert to scheming and try to make themselves irreplaceable — they do things purely because they think these things will fly, never because it is just the thing they'd like to do. I always wondered if — maybe — it is me that is too playful, too improvised, too spontaneous: what if they are right and I…

My first real job/career out of college was a direct result of my taking a pure-interest-no-future-prospect-of-employment type class for three semesters.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#37

Post by dzink »

For the sake of good discussion about moats from different angles:

The moats in the article seem to be for a public personal brand tied to a niche skill that could make you a go-to expert for a while (a tool for others to use). That may work if you want to be the next Jason, Tim Ferris, Naval, etc to attract people, jobs, deal-flow, or funding, but what if you don’t want to give up your privacy or be subject to constant barrage of demands from strangers (making you likely unable to trust or open up to almost anyone)?

Here are some other valuable angles worth considering:

In the corporate world rise in the ranks is credited to: PIE (Perspiration + Intelligence + Exposure) where exposure gives you 80% of the gains. (Source: executives mentoring at a large corporation)

Also in the corporate world another saying claims: “Don’t ever become irreplaceable, because when you can’t be replaced, you can’t be prompted.” So owning a niche can easily backfire on you.

From the founder side, you almost want the opposite - you want to know all the trusted, best people to talk to and for them to trust and know you in a non-threatening way. That means ears for the ground and attention to the needs of your network, not flags in the air. I would much much rather consult, trust, and listen to 30 minutes of feedback by Jessica Livingston than 3 hrs of Gary V.

As a software architect I can maybe see ahead 2-4 years on what is possible. As a founder, thanks to my network, I can also see maybe 5 years ahead based on unmet needs on the radar of early adopters in whichever target market I dig into. That trust network grows over time and eventually rises all boats. Instead of a moat, you build a volcanic process that raises your mountain and the others around you. That signal can turn largely into noise if you become a public figure.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#38

Post by dcl »

mettamage wrote: post #35
stocknoob wrote: post #14

Look at the premise here: your life is a competition, a fight. People are coming for you and you'd better have a moat if you want to keep your position. Also, solve the ikigai which has 4 simultaneous variables to optimize. Protip: live simply, save at a decent rate, get financial freedom and you can solve the much simpler 3-dimensional ikigai.

> get financial freedom How? In The Netherlands, I don't know how to do this other than working in the HFT industry.

How big is the HFT industry in the Netherlands? Is this just something you can chose to do?

Re: Build Personal Moats

#39

Post by hobofan »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #3

Blah blah blah, of course, it would be amazing if everyone could build personal moats, but guess what, very few people can. There's one Elad Gil. One Tim Ferriss. If 10,000 people try, perhaps one of them could roughly replicate Tim's success. Personal moats are great. And incredibly tough to build. I prefer advice that is actionable, and can bring results for most people following that advice. This one is not advice…

> One Tim Ferriss

Maybe only one person as big as him, but in the niches related to marketing, "growth hacking" and coaching, there are literally thousands of people out there that have built such a person cult around them and are making a very good living out of it.

Re: Build Personal Moats

#40

Post by dandare »

This concept is dangerously close to the antipattern of information hoarding and hero culture. Yes, from your personal perspective building such moat can be advantageous, but from the company perspective - or if you are a manager and see such behaviour, you should:

- Document "Hard to learn and hard to do" processes. Make sure new hires can understand these processes easily.

- Seek workarounds for "Impossible without rare and/or valuable skills" processes. Do not reward hero culture.

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