CB Insights has created a comprehensive list of the different types of competitive moats across different industries, with specific companies that exemplified this approach. The best companies ofcourse have multiple moats that make them durable businesses. The full list below:
Network Effect Moats
- Marketplace: The virtuous circle that made Amazon an $850B business
- Marketplace: How OpenTable created a monopoly by giving restaurants a ‘single-player mode’
- Marketplace: How Uber dominated ride-sharing by owning supply and demand
- Data: How Google used its search expertise to build a wide data moat
- Platform: The OS that made Apple a $1T company
- Platform: How Facebook’s control of the social graph made it hyper-durable
Cost Moats
- Switching cost: How IBM used the psychology of fear to own back-end technology for decades
- Switching cost: Why ADP is still America’s biggest provider of payroll services
- Sunk cost: The business model that made Gillette a $57B company
- Cost advantage: Why Geico going D2C made them Warren Buffett’s favorite stock
- Cost advantage: How Amazon Web Services built an impenetrable economy of scale
Cultural Moats
- Brand: How Patagonia grew by understanding its customer identity
- Brand: Why consistency has been key to Coca-Cola‘s success
- Brand: How Starbucks altered Americans’ relationship with its coffee
- Tradition: How Marmite became condiment king in the UK
Resource Moats
- IP: How Pfizer turned Lipitor into the best-selling drug in the world
- IP: The universe of characters that made Disney a $230B company
- Knowledge: How Canon turned its technical expertise into a compounding benefit
- Regulatory: How the Kingsbury Commitment gave AT&T a 71-year monopoly