Stop Asking these Startup-Killing Questions

Potential founders kill great ideas by obsessing over two irrelevant questions:

1. "What's the moat?"
2. "What stops Microsoft or Google or Salesforce from building this?"

Both of these are irrelevant questions when you are starting up.

Why?

1. Moats aren't prerequisites—they're rewards for execution. Stripe had no moat initially, just better API docs.
2. When was the last time Microsoft or Salesforce or Google shipped that felt like a jaw-dropping moment?

Ask these instead:

1. "What difficult thing can you build that others can't easily replicate?" (This becomes your foundation for a future moat & near-term differentiation)
2. "What makes you unstoppable?" (Customer obsession? Speed? Product instinct?)

The difference? These questions focus on action rather than hesitation.

Start building.

That's it!

P.S: okay gemini 2.5 and notebooklm are good products