What Creates Durable Value in Software Today?

Praveen Paranjothi · 2026-05-19T08:34:05.000Z

If software is fast commoditizing, thanks to AI, what creates and holds value today? What can make a VC invest in you? A feature that once took two years to build can now be replicated in few weeks. That changes what startup value actually means. Software alone is becoming less defensible. The companies building durable positions tend to have one thing in common: Leaving them becomes painful. Not because the UI is beautiful. So what can make leaving be painful? If they hold something that is difficult to recreate elsewhere: • your historical data • your workflows • your integrations • your network • years of operational context 1. LinkedIn’s moat is not its interface. It is decades of professional relationship data and network effects that cannot easily be replicated elsewhere. 2. Salesforce’s moat is not the CRM dashboard. It is the enterprise memory built through years of customer, pipeline and operational history embedded across organisations. 3. Stripe’s moat is not the API alone. It is the payments infrastructure, integrations and financial workflows millions of businesses already depend on. AI is accelerating this shift. Features are commoditising faster. Distribution, data, workflow ownership and switching costs matter more than ever. What can you create and hold that makes leaving you painful? Because when the cost of leaving becomes greater than the cost of paying, you may have built something truly durable. #Software #BusinessModels #AI #Newnex

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What Creates Durable Value in Software Today? | Newnex