The ultimate PLG companies are consumer brands like shampoo, which sell on brand affinity, not commoditized features. As software becomes more commoditized, B2B companies must similarly build a strong brand theme that inspires users to associate with them, creating a more durable moat than features alone.

As AI makes software creation faster and cheaper, the market will flood with products. In this environment of abundance, a strong brand, point of view, taste, and high-quality design become the most critical factors for a product to stand out and win customers.

Brand is becoming a key moat in AI infrastructure, a sector where it was previously irrelevant. In rapidly growing and confusing markets, education can't keep pace with adoption. As a result, customers default to the brands they recognize, creating powerful monopolies for early leaders. This mirrors the early internet era when Netscape dominated through brand recognition.

In a competitive landscape, the winning long-term play isn't a marketing land-grab. The founder of Simple AI argues for focusing relentlessly on building the best-in-class product, as sophisticated buyers will compare options and choose the superior technology.

Facing a commoditized AI market, Claude sponsored a New York coffee shop to differentiate itself from competitors. By promoting "thinking" and old-school creativity with physical merch, it's building a brand as a curated, intellectual partner, rather than just another tool for generating low-quality "AI slop."

As consumers use AI assistants (e.g., Alexa) to find services, the platform will choose the provider. If customers don't ask for your business by name, you become a commodity. Building a strong brand is the only way to ensure customers request you directly.

Consumer tech is in a cyclical upswing driven by AI. Unlike the previous era dominated by paid acquisition, today's founders can win through product ambition alone. Massive organic consumer interest in AI means if you're not getting distribution, the problem is your product, not your marketing budget.

For product categories where AI can easily replicate the core technology (like online file converters or headshot generators), defensibility shifts away from tech. The business becomes a pure play on marketing, distribution, and brand, much like succeeding with a new brand of canned water.

Aspiring founders often obsess over creating unique intellectual property (IP) as a moat. In reality, for most bootstrapped SaaS companies, competitive advantage comes from superior marketing, sales, and positioning—not patents or secret algorithms. Customers choose the best tool that solves their problem, not the one with the most patents.