Feedback cycles, Moats, Siege tactics

Feedback Cycles

Asking for feedback is genuinely a huge part of the game. You need to be collecting data points on literally everything,

did a new site: feedback,

launching new product: feedback,

new launch video: feedback,

organized an event: feedback,

adding a new feature: feedback;

You need to get feedback or at least rely on systems that consistently feed you data points.

Moats

The problem is looking at your moat as something static. It should be ever expanding. If you do not add more and more defences to your business, if you don't learn more, if you don't leverage more skills and curate more acumen it is going to be a problem either later down the line or as early as tomorrow.

I always find it weird when people feel uncontested, no one puts remotely enough work to claim holding the throne regardless. There has been distinct climbs to power in world's history for a reason. Kings fall, rogues break lose, bandits become kings, barbarians raid. There is no moat for people who find solace in comfort.

If you have a position that doesn't challenge you, it might really be a matter of time until the crown is knocked off of your head.

Introduction to the problem statement:

A static moat is an illusion. Building a business without a continuous, aggressive feedback loop means you’re waiting to be conquered. The market is entirely dynamic, yet most operators treat their competitive advantage as a permanent fixture. If you are not actively collecting data points on every launch, feature, and interaction, you are flying blind into a warzone.

Problem constraints

• There is no permanent throne. When you feel uncontested, it simply means you are unaware of the barbarians at the gates. If you do not actively add defences to your business, your current position is actively decaying.
• What worked yesterday is largely irrelevant today. Without constant, incoming data points (feedback), your map of the market becomes outdated. You end up optimizing for a landscape that no longer exists.
• If you rely solely on your own intuition or let humility make you invisible, you lose touch with reality. You are rewarded for results, not isolated hard work. Without external feedback, you are only validating your own biases.

Rigorous proof:

Let’s look at the raw mechanics of business survival and skill acquisition:

• Every day you operate without gathering new feedback, your market alignment degrades.
• Meanwhile, ambitious competitors and up and coming rogues are actively collecting data to breach your current defences.
• To survive and expand your moat, the rate of your internal learning must exceed the rate of external market change.
• Therefore, you must treat feedback as frontline intelligence. You must curate a continuously expanding arsenal of skills and allies to process that intelligence.
• You do not need a thicker wall. You need better radar. A fortress without scouts will always be blindsided by a siege.

A couple of ways to expand on the skills you have while curating skills that you previously were not proficient in:

Legitimacy is easier achieved than trust, go for this first.

A couple of ways to expand on the skills you have while curating skills that you previously were not proficient in:

Start small, aim high

Most development happens while you are in rooms where you're not supposed to be, enter an organization, talk to senior operatives, even when you are just starting out. There people can advocate for you, not because you work hard, but because you show potential and intensity.

If you let humility take the wheel the only thing you will become is invisible. In the workforce you are not rewarded by your work, you are rewarded by the results and your performance. It's all a performance.

Learn things that don't scale:

How to make user generated content, how to edit videos. How to write a newsletter. How to start cold email campaigns. Learn how to do typography, learn about history on very niche angles, learn how to do a sport. All of these will turn into skills and ways of thinking that will pay dividends later down the line. You will not know the outcomes before taking the step. So if you're doing your moonshot keep arming yourself with more skills, maybe one day they'll help save an arm or a leg.

Meet people that overperform in their field:

Expert advice is something that helps tremendously. Some people pay a couple hundred dollars to learn the specifics about a skill or an industry from people who have become experts or thought leaders in their fields. Sun Tzu spoke highly of getting help from locals when waging war, the expert is person in a specific industry as a local is the person that can guide you in unknown lands. When you're on the path to take down incumbents and to launch your project to the moon, you are no longer a rebellion; it is all out war. You should understand the severity of your position, the enemy you are bound to face in the frontlines; and you should definitely take into account the dozens of artillery batteries aiming at your position.

Cherish the battle, find purpose under fire

Most people will ghost you, most people don't have 15 minutes for a coffee chat, but that shouldn't discourage you from doing so regardless. It's a battlefield yes, but again you can recruit the greatest soldiers you know, some decorated generals or up and coming Napoléons. You can most definitely find allies in the midst of battle, combine forces, attack at once. You can also find great camaraderie and create your own triumvirate, you can be the emperor if you ever desire to be.

But you must cherish the battle, hating it will sink you down. I cannot approach a situation with a negative attitude or a spec of self doubt when I know that it is worth it. I have time and time again risen from lows that make no sense, and every single time I had a positive attitude to carry me out of those ditches.

The purpose to be found is usually found through people and not elongated time dwelling on the theory. Talk with people, find like minded individuals. Make some noise, be contrarian (only if you know you are right; there usually is hell to pay for people who are 'contrarian' and 'wrong'), do it for the love of the game and the company.

As a closing note I want to circle back in the idea of "feedback" and how it affects your life on a more elaborate manner.

Takeaways

Feedback dictates your training: The intelligence you gather tells you exactly which "unscalable" skills you need to learn next.

Feedback dictates your alliances: It shows you where your blind spots are, revealing exactly which experts and "generals" you need to recruit.

Feedback secures the throne: It is the only mechanism that turns a static, vulnerable moat into an ever expanding empire.

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Read PG articles that talk more about this topic, there's a reason why the greats are the greats.

I'll finish with a Napoléon Maxim that I hold dear to my heart:

❝Peruse again and again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Cæsar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene, and Frederick. Model yourself upon them. This is the only means of becoming a great captain, and of acquiring the secret of the art of war.

• Napoléon Bonaparte

Stay alert, stay great,