Core Competence and Barriers | The Concepts

Sayings：

Let me share some recent thoughts on core competitiveness and barriers to entry.

What is core competitiveness?

At the end of last year, I received my first decent internship offer: a user operations role at Guangdong TV’s news app. But I lasted only a week—maybe even less—before leaving.

Low pay was part of the reason, but the bigger issue was that this job offered no opportunity to build core competitiveness.

My daily work consisted of posting comments under articles—either copying existing ones or making up my own. Naturally, being as lazy as I am, I just copied.

Why does this kind of work lack core competitiveness?

Because anyone can do it. It’s like moving bricks at a construction site: as long as you’re strong enough, you’re good. When you’re no longer able, they’ll just replace you. Or if I’m in a bad mood, I can swap you out too. The cost of replacing someone is low, so low that the market is flooded with people ready to take your place.

The same logic applies to businesses. Even if your company is growing fast and cash flow is healthy, if your business model is easily replicable—like an intermediary connecting clients and suppliers—then you have nothing truly core. Clients can bypass you and go straight to suppliers, and suppliers can go directly to clients.

Once they realize that cutting you out opens up larger profit margins and better collaboration models, and once the time and labor costs of doing so are worth it, intermediaries without core competitiveness will be discarded.

The internet has driven exactly this trend: eliminating middlemen and connecting directly to end users. For every business, the best way to raise profits is to cut out unnecessary steps and remove those who take a cut.

I’m just using these two examples to illustrate what core competitiveness means:

1. Are you a replaceable cog, easy to swap out at any moment?

2. Are you in a position that could easily be rendered unnecessary?

In other words, are you irreplaceable—or at least hard to replace? In others’ ecosystems, can they not function without going through you?

Roughly speaking, think of the cycle: product → consumer → cash flow → back to product.

For instance: we all use smartphones. In this ecosystem, smartphones as products are irreplaceable, so manufacturers compete with each other but aren’t eliminated. Consumers generate the cash flow, so the channels reaching them—physical stores and online shops—won’t disappear either. But middlemen like distributors or retail stores, if they lack exclusive agency contracts, will be squeezed out when manufacturers partner directly with stores.

The principle is simple: middlemen don’t create value; they merely capture and distribute it.

It’s the end consumer who contributes cash flow, and that cash flow drives product development.

So within a cyclical ecosystem, becoming someone who cannot be replaced or bypassed is what gives you core competitiveness.

What are barriers to entry?

Someone replied on my Moments post: “Accumulate enough hardship, and it becomes a barrier.” Ha, just kidding.

Literally, “壁垒” refers to defensive walls—their purpose? To stop enemies from getting in.

So in plain terms, a barrier is just a “threshold.”

So why are there so many people starting WeChat public accounts and content creation? Because the barrier to entry is low. Have you ever seen another industry where a startup can reach 3.5 million followers? WeChat accounts made it possible precisely because no one can stop others from joining.

Suppose you want to open a fruit shop. What do you need? A leased storefront, a supply channel, initial inventory capital, and some working cash flow.

These are the basic conditions you need before you can even start—and they also form your entry threshold. Only when you have these resources can you open a fruit shop and give it a shot.

Take the popular bike-sharing industry, for example. Raising funds and deploying thousands of bikes isn’t just about capturing market share. It’s also about building barriers: if you don’t have that kind of capital, don’t even think about entering the fray.

The literal meaning of “壁垒” is a city wall. Aside from keeping people out, another function is keeping people in.

What do I mean?

If you’ve built a WeChat public account with millions of followers, would you easily just abandon it?

That’s impossible. Those millions of followers will stop you from giving up—even if only psychologically. They’ll create internal pressure that makes quitting feel like a betrayal.

The same applies to infrastructure-heavy businesses. Consider public transit buses: the companies running them often operate at a loss, yet the government won’t let them fail. It actively prevents their collapse.

The reason is straightforward: public transportation is a national challenge, and these enterprises help solve it.

In terms of careers, barriers are things like courses, skill requirements, and educational credentials—they block others from entering. Meanwhile, skills like Photoshop also constitute core competitiveness: finding someone who knows Photoshop is much harder than finding someone who only needs to lend physical effort.

As for businesses? Figure that out yourself.

Whatever you do, if you’re not just looking to make a quick buck and move on—but actually want to build something sustainable—then you must establish barriers and cultivate core competitiveness.

I want to show you the beauty of my remaining years.

In a world full of change, finding what remains constant and holding onto it should lead to decent achievements.

Like how everything changes except money, hahaha.