“Novato has achieved the impossible: building a company so secretive that even their own website refuses to admit what they do. Behind a Cloudflare security wall that treats every visitor like a potential threat, they've constructed the digital equivalent of a speakeasy where nobody can remember the password — including the bouncer.”
Hard to disrupt a business model that appears to be 'exist behind a perpetually broken security check.' ChatGPT could probably explain what Novato does better than Novato can, which is either impressive AI capability or damning operational incompetence.
The entire workforce could be replaced by a single 'Coming Soon' HTML page and nobody would notice the difference. At least a 404 error gives you useful information.
Their moat is that competitors can't figure out what they're competing against. It's the strategic equivalent of winning hide-and-seek by hiding so well that you forget where you are too.
The most visible sign of their AI strategy is a Cloudflare bot checker that has apparently achieved consciousness and decided to protect the world from Novato's content. Even the robots are trying to help.
The need for companies that hide their entire value proposition behind broken security checks will not survive AI — mainly because it barely survived the invention of functional web development.
“Novato will be killed by the first AI that can successfully pass their Cloudflare verification, which should happen sometime next Tuesday. They've built the only business model that's disruption-proof by being customer-proof first.”
Scores are based on public information and AI analysis. This is an affectionate roast, not a financial assessment. The best companies use this as a mirror, not a verdict.