Barriers to entry are the obstacles or hindrances that make it difficult for new companies to enter a given market.
One of the most important things to remember about these barriers is that they can change over time, and become more or less penetrable.
Attention must be paid to these changes.
The Primary Moats
These barriers are powerful, and they constitute substantial bulwarks against competition:
Brand loyalty to a sport as well-established and universal as existing racquet sports is significant, but that loyalty weakens when we venture into new markets, with a different product, as we must.
Innovation is another core differentiator that must be maintained over time to remain effective.
Network Effects will be one of our most powerful barriers, if we take advantage of our global presence to build a massive Virtual Sport community.
Locked-up Supply is relevant because only we can issue Racket:Nx or another of our sports… as a sport.
Location, for us, needs to be everywhere, in every country and every corner of every country. This is closely allied with Network Effects.
Intellectual Property speaks for itself.
Scale is absolutely in our favour, but only if we leverage it in the marketplace.
Proprietary Information regarding the deployment and management of Virtual Sport will always be in our favour.
A Very Special Moat: Cross-Domain Collaboration