I wish we could use NFC on an Apple watch. It would have saved a lot of trouble. Unfortunately the read range of NFC is too short to work on a climbing wall. The climbers wrist will sometimes be up 12+ inches away from the closest point on the wall. This was the challenge that I ran into with our first prototype.
As for moat, I think we have some patentable IP (another potential large cost to file for that patent) and because our model hinges on a relationship with the climbing gym, the big guys would have to establish a salesforce to sell into these gyms, which I think for the size of the market would not be worth it for them. If we can solidify a decent market share it would probably be more likely that they'd try to buy us out rather than fighting for those relationships, but I'm not certain about that.