Building a proprietary data moat from workflows and customer data

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Welcome to the 186th edition of The Growth Elements Newsletter. Every Monday and sometimes on Thursday, I write an essay on growth metrics & experiments and business case studies.

Today’s piece is for 8,000+ founders, operators, and leaders from businesses such as Shopify, Google, Hubspot, Zoho, Freshworks, Servcorp, Zomato, Postman, Razorpay and Zoom.

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In 2026, models and UI are easy to copy; proprietary data tied to real workflows is what compounds.​

A strong data moat comes from being in the critical workflow and capturing outcome‑linked data that competitors cannot cheaply replicate.​

Practical pointers

[1] Good SaaS data moats rely on:

• User‑generated data (actions, configs, content).

• Transactional data (payments, support, outcomes).

• Context‑rich workflow data (sequence, timing, participants).​

[2] Design every key workflow so it:

• Captures structured inputs (fields, tags, outcomes).

• Logs behaviour events (clicks, time, paths).

• Links data to business results (win/loss, churn, ROI).​

[3] Start with one or two narrow AI use cases:

• Examples: churn risk, next‑best action, anomaly detection, forecast quality.​

• Use your workflow + outcome data to train models that clearly improve revenue, retention, or efficiency.​

[4] Strengthen the moat by:

• Driving more usage of the workflows (volume).

• Improving data quality (cleaning, normalisation, deduplication).

• Closing the loop: feed predictions back into the product and measure uplift.​

[5] Avoid “data moat theatre”:

• Generic or bought data is rarely a moat.

• If customers do not use the AI features frequently, the data advantage is not yet meaningful.​

Final learnings

• Treat workflows as the engine and data as the exhaust you refine into AI, not the other way round.​

• A real data moat is visible in better outcomes (higher NRR, lower churn, better margins), not slideware claims about “owning more data”.

That's it for today's article! I hope you found this essay insightful.

Wishing you a productive week ahead!

I always appreciate you reading.

Thanks,
Chintankumar Maisuria