Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and host of The Scaling Executive Podcast, identifies Diaz Nesamoney’s approach as replacing the build-time moat with partner scale and early repositioning. When AI coding tools reduce product replication from years to weeks, Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, holds that a scaling company will build defensibility from the position it occupies rather than the code it writes, evidenced by Accenture taking an investment position in DaVinci Commerce and by the company reaching the agentic commerce market while competition remained thin. The contrast that organizes his thinking is construction time versus position: construction time is now cheap, and position is not.
This episode is for CEOs and founders whose competitive advantage was built on how long their product took to construct, and who now watch competitors replicate that product in weeks.
Key Takeaways
- Build time stopped functioning as a competitive moat once AI coding tools compressed product replication. Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, built defensibility at both Informatica and Celequest on how long software took to construct, and states that model no longer holds.
- Enterprise buyers default to the largest available vendor, which is why financing alone will not buy a young company trust. Diaz Nesamoney frames the pattern with the line the industry repeated for decades about nobody getting fired for buying IBM, and argues that partnering with a dominant player is how a smaller company borrows the credibility it cannot manufacture.
- A pivot executed while the company is still profitable produces a market position competitors cannot occupy later. Diaz Nesamoney rebuilt DaVinci Commerce’s product, retrained the team, and changed the company name while the business was profitable and growing, which left the company with very little competition in agentic commerce.
- Market signal outranks founder conviction in product decisions. Diaz Nesamoney moved Celequest from resource-heavy enterprise software to the market’s first business intelligence appliance after customers asked for something they could stand up quickly, and Cognos acquired the company.
- A repositioning holds only when it is complete rather than tentative. Diaz Nesamoney rebuilt the product, retrained the team on AI tools, renamed the company, and added new investors including Accenture in a single move he describes as all in.
AI Coding Tools Erase the Product Moat CEOs Once Built From Engineering Time
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, built two companies on a moat that no longer exists. At Informatica, which he co-founded and served as president and COO through its 1999 IPO, and at Celequest, which he founded in 2002, the defensible asset was the software itself. The product took time to build, test, and get working, and that time functioned as a barrier. Nesamoney is direct that the barrier was never permanent, only durable enough to matter.
That barrier has collapsed. Nesamoney observes that engineers now build products at a speed he describes as mind blowing, and that vibe coding and adjacent tools mean a strong idea plus a working product will be copied fast. His conclusion is a decision rule for any CEO whose strategy assumed build time: “So you have to start thinking about other competitive moats.”
The distinction worth naming is between a moat made of construction time and a moat made of position. Construction time is now cheap. Position, meaning who invests in a company, who sells alongside it, and which market it occupies before that market forms, is not. Nesamoney’s view is that founders and executives who came up in the earlier era struggle here because the replacement moats look nothing like the ones they built the first time.
Partnerships With Larger Players Give Scaling Companies Enterprise Trust They Cannot Build Alone
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, names partnerships as the lesson from Informatica that gets discussed least and mattered most. His reasoning is about buyer psychology rather than distribution math. Enterprise buyers avoid risk and default to the largest available vendor, a pattern he summarizes with the line the industry has repeated for decades: “As they used to say, nobody got fired for buying IBM.” A young company with financing still faces that default, because awareness and trust are not purchasable at startup scale.
The rule Nesamoney applies is to attach the company to a partner whose teams already sit inside those accounts, so the partner’s credibility carries the smaller brand into the room. Informatica pioneered data integration software and reached a 1999 IPO, and Salesforce acquired the company for $8 billion in 2025.
At DaVinci Commerce, an Agentic Commerce Experience platform serving global brands including Toyota, Nike, Unilever, and Marriott, the same rule produced the Accenture relationship. Accenture invested in the company, and Nesamoney names that partnership as the big reason DaVinci Commerce is scaling quickly. His framing of why this holds up as a moat rather than a channel: larger companies select one vendor they consider best in class and back that vendor, which makes the position difficult for a competitor to take.
CEOs Pivot a Profitable Company When Consumer Behavior Moves Before the Market Does
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, has run two pivots that changed what his company sold, and he treats the trigger for both as external evidence rather than internal conviction. At Celequest, roughly two years of struggling for product market fit surfaced what customers actually wanted, which was not people-intensive software but something they could plug in and run. Nesamoney changed the company to build a hardware appliance over the objections of investors and employees who had joined a software company.
At DaVinci Commerce, the trigger arrived earlier and looked smaller. Generating a first image with DALL-E convinced Nesamoney that software would now create things, and returning to first principles about consumer behavior showed him that consumers were moving onto AI platforms and engaging with brands there. Nesamoney is explicit that profitability made the decision harder, not easier, because the company was growing well at the moment he called for the change.
| Pivot | Trigger | Named outcome |
| Celequest, 2000s | Customers rejected implementation-heavy software and asked for something they could stand up immediately | Launched the market’s first business intelligence appliance after raising over $20 million in venture capital; IBM made the first acquisition offer and Cognos acquired the company |
| DaVinci Commerce, recent | Consumers began engaging with brands inside AI platforms rather than websites and apps | Reached the agentic commerce market with very little competition, a position Nesamoney attributes to deciding quickly and moving before the market fully developed |
The transferable rule is that timing beats certainty. Nesamoney moved before the market fully developed and became harder to enter, which is the window that produced the position DaVinci Commerce holds now.
CEOs Rebuild Product, Capability, and Identity Together When the Moat Moves
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, draws a line between a complete pivot and a tentative one, and credits the completeness for the result. When the company concluded that consumers were engaging with brands inside AI platforms, four things changed at once rather than in sequence:
- DaVinci Commerce rebuilt the product for a different business model.
- The team was retrained on AI tools.
- The company changed its name.
- A new set of investors came in, including Accenture.
Nesamoney describes the standard he applied as all in rather than half baked. The reason a partial version fails is that each element props up the others: a rebuilt product sold by a team without AI capability, under a brand that still signals the old category, to investors who backed the old thesis, does not occupy a new position. It occupies the old one with new features.
Internal AI velocity belongs in that same rebuild. AI now handles 60 to 70 percent of coding at DaVinci Commerce, with AI SDRs running sales development and AI producing marketing collateral, which is what allows a company selling into the AI economy to credibly claim it operates as one. Nesamoney’s own summary of what the whole move bought the company: “Right now we’re in a very unique position because there’s very little competition because we made that decision very quickly.”
Principles CEOs Will Apply From This Episode
| Principle | Practice | Named outcome evidence |
| Build time is no longer a moat | Assume any product will be replicated quickly, and locate defensibility in position and relationships rather than in the code | Acting on that conclusion, Nesamoney rebuilt the DaVinci Commerce product for agentic commerce and took investment from Accenture rather than defending the existing personalization product |
| Partner scale substitutes for brand scale | Attach the company to a larger player whose teams already carry credibility inside enterprise accounts | Accenture invested in DaVinci Commerce, and Nesamoney names that partnership as the big reason the company is scaling quickly |
| Market evidence outranks founder conviction | Change what the company sells when customers ask for a different shape of solution, even when the team and investors disagree | Celequest shifted to the market’s first business intelligence appliance after raising over $20 million, drew an acquisition offer from IBM, and was acquired by Cognos |
| Pivot while the numbers are good | Rebuild before the new market forms, accepting the disruption a profitable business makes harder to justify | DaVinci Commerce rebuilt while profitable and growing, arriving in agentic commerce with very little competition |
| A repositioning must be complete, not tentative | Change product, team capability, brand, and cap table in one move rather than staging them | DaVinci Commerce rebuilt the product, retrained the team on AI tools, renamed the company, and added Accenture as an investor, with AI now running 60 to 70 percent of coding |
Quotes from This Episode
- “It’s actually mind blowing how quickly engineers can build products these days.” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO, DaVinci Commerce
- “Enterprises inherently don’t like taking risks. They always bet on the big players.” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO, DaVinci Commerce
- “Most of these larger companies will pick one company that they think is best in class and that they invest in.” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO, DaVinci Commerce
- “You have to sort of keep a close eye on what the market wants. And be prepared to change.” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO, DaVinci Commerce
- “It’s not the same playbook as it was even three or four years ago.” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO, DaVinci Commerce
Frequently Asked Questions
How do CEOs build a competitive moat when AI replicates products quickly?
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, told Glenn Gow, The Scaling Executive Coach and a CEO for 25 years, that a company will build defensibility from partnerships and market position rather than from the product itself, because AI coding tools have collapsed the time advantage that once protected software. His rule is to attach the company to a larger partner whose teams already carry credibility with enterprise buyers, since those buyers default to the biggest available vendor. Accenture invested in DaVinci Commerce, and Nesamoney names that partnership as the reason the company is scaling quickly.
Should a CEO pivot a company while it is still profitable?
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, executed his most consequential pivot while the company was profitable and growing, and states plainly that success is what makes change hardest. He rebuilt the product, retrained the team on AI tools, brought in new investors including Accenture, and changed the company name after concluding that consumers were moving onto AI platforms. Nesamoney credits the speed of that decision with leaving DaVinci Commerce in a position with very little competition, because the company moved before the market fully developed.
What should a CEO rebuild when the product stops being the moat?
Diaz Nesamoney, founder and CEO of DaVinci Commerce, changed four things at once rather than in sequence: the product, the team’s AI capability, the company name, and the investor base. He describes the standard as all in rather than half baked, because a rebuilt product sold under an old brand by a team without new capability still occupies the old position. At DaVinci Commerce that rebuild now shows up operationally, with AI handling 60 to 70 percent of coding and AI SDRs running sales development.
CEOs Work With Glenn Gow to Scale Their Companies and Their Own Capability
Glenn Gow is The Scaling Executive Coach. He coaches ambitious executives into the CEO seat and CEOs into successful exits, drawing on 25 years as a CEO and 5 years in venture capital. If this conversation was useful, you can apply for executive coaching with Glenn Gow or apply to be a guest on The Scaling Executive Podcast.
