Core are the “crown jewels”. It is that special thing you have or can do that no one else can do. Even if they see you product and study it in detail for a long time, they maybe able to recreate everything but the core. That will be your special sauce they can not duplicate and it will protect you from imitators coming into the market and producing a similar product/experience for your target customers. It is not “core business”. It does relate to “core competencies” but is not the same thing. A Core can help you create moats but also moats can be assembled and use to give you time to create a core like we did at SensAble Technologies. A core can take time to build and so having moats to provide you time to build your core is the most common way. For instance, network effects can be a core but you need something to give you time to build up the network effects and that is often moats. Make sense?

Sure makes sense. So the core, the special sauce is something that nobody else can easily replicate, something that makes the startup special. It gives a hard to copy competitive advantage.  When explaining it to students the \\\\\\\’something\\\\\\\’ is hard to explain. It could be anything within the business model! Would you (for lectures) try to give a definition of the \\\\\\\’something\\\\\\\’ or just a dozen examples?