
Death to the Cult of Stealth Startups - blacktar
http://stopmebeforeiblogagain.com/death-to-the-cult-of-stealth-startups/
======
ChuckMcM
Old Battlebots story, when my team was competing we would talk to other teams
in the 'pit' area. There were a number of teams that kept everything covered
up and hush hush until their first fight. Then there were teams like mine who
would tell you anything you wanted to know about our bot. The stealth guys
never did well in their first appearance, and if they came back the following
year and stayed "stealthy" they didn't do well then either. It was the back
and forth of multiple ideas and questions that helped people prepare for
something which was essentially part chance, part strategy, part build
quality.

Over the years Startups seem to have a similar path. I've known some which
were ok but started out stealthy, but most that start stealthy seem to launch,
and _then_ pivot after getting some real world experience and feedback. The
ones that are pretty open seem to come out swinging and they already have
answers for most of the questions thrown at them (which gives them
credibility).

Perhaps notable, perhaps not, in the 30 years I've been watching I have yet to
see a single startup that was open and that resulted in someone else
"scooping" them and getting the prize. But I have seen startups that execute
poorly not move fast enough once their market is proven to avoid damage by a
nimbler opponent.

~~~
blacktar
Great insights! I guess I'm no different in that I'm probably going to be
pivoting after more real market exposure and feedback. I just want to go
faster forwards and believe more radical transparency will help me with that.

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mindcrime
Good stuff. There are some ideas in that post that I want to crib / borrow
from!

We are already about as far from "stealth" as you can get, in that all of our
products are Open Source (Apache Licensed and on GitHub), we blog a lot, and
we have a public facing website that makes it pretty clear what we're doing
and aiming at.

That said, it's a sort of "static transparency". Anybody who cares to know,
can come to fogbeam.com or our github site, etc., and learn a lot about us.
But this post makes me think about a more "dynamic tranparency" where we push
ideas / thoughts / code / whatever, out and more actively _solicit_ feedback
and interaction around that.

Of course we already solicit feedback, talk about the roadmap, etc., _in
private_ when meeting with potential customers in Customer Development
interviews... but we could probably get more people involved and generate more
good ideas that way.

~~~
blacktar
Cool. Feel free to steal. :) I think of it as one more channel for feedback,
as to not miss out on insights otherwise lost.

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dsirijus
Why add unneccesary noise channels? Not everything is black and white. Open up
when it makes sense to be open, and be stealthy when it's appropriate.

~~~
blacktar
How would you define unnecessary noise? Conversely, what do you see as the
necessary noise channels? How would you define and know when it is appropriate
to open and close? (edit: added last question)

~~~
dsirijus
Example of neccesary noise would be me trying to support clients who don't
have a clue what they're doing with the product (and it's their stupidity to
blame).

As for unneccesary noise example, that would be feedback of people whose
feedback I do not value.

And as for edited and added last question - it depends. :)

~~~
blacktar
How do you know to objectively value feedback sources? Why and how does it
depend?

~~~
dsirijus
I usually bundle feedback in two groups - first one is my target demographic,
the second one is professional. First one is pretty straightforward to parse,
the second one is a kind of a double-edged sword.

Whatever your methodology is, at some point you can't parse more feedback, and
it's then noise, whatever its contribution is.

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swamp40
One reason NOT to share everything with everybody:

With the new patent laws, you only have a one year window to file from the
time something is first disclosed publicly.

~~~
JMCQ87
Assumptions: a) You believe in the value of patents and b) you have something
that can be patented.

~~~
rscale
a₂) Your investors believe in the value of patents.

~~~
pjungwir
I had one investor tell me, "Patents are for losers." What he meant was that
if you succeed, you don't really need the patent, and your time is better
spent building your business than starting patent fights. If you fail, then at
least you might be able to sell or license the patent. I'm not sure I agree,
but it's an interesting perspective.

~~~
darkarmani
That's odd. I've always thought patent applications by smaller businesses are
for defensive use. For example, when RFID was in a bubble the early companies
patented and then licensed in a patent pool, but also had then for defensive
purposes.

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olegp
At <https://starhq.com> we've made our roadmap public (link in footer) and let
people vote on items to bump up their priority. The response has been
overwhelmingly positive. However I've found it important to use the number of
votes and feedback as a guide, with us making the final decision on what we
roll out and in what order.

~~~
blacktar
Interesting idea. I've experimented with putting non-functional buttons and
widgets in the app and register how many tap on them versus how many who
complain about it not working. I believe you also have to ask the data, not
just the people.

~~~
olegp
We do something similar via text saying "if you want X, get in touch via the
feedback form" before implementing features.

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dinkumthinkum
But to what end are you serving by following this propaganda? Is there
irrefutable empirical evidence that shows this, rather, extreme approach to
product development actually yields better results? To me it is just part and
parcel of some "do everything in public all the time" meme. Ironically, the
view being proffered here is _much_ more like a cult than the view of being
more, well, reasonable.

What I'd like to see from people like this is 24/7 webcams in offices
programmers worker's mic'ed up, with some sort of peanut gallery available for
viewers. :)

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c1sc0
Nice move! Just about the only nitpick I have is that there's no such thing as
a cult of stealth startups anymore. That was a 2005 kinda thing. I think most
people got the memo by now.

~~~
outside1234
you'd be surprised. there are a lot of ex-Apple folks out there doing startups
that think the only reason the iPhone was successful was because of secrecy.

~~~
MichaelGG
To be fair, the iPhone did totally broadside the existing phone makers. Had
there been hype years before, and prototypes floating around a year earlier,
they'd have had a more time to react. (Not like they reacted very well
anyways.)

~~~
blacktar
There were hype in spades leading up to the iPhone launch, though. And it is
not like it was revolutionary in any other way than that it changed the
business model of media and mobile phones previously in favor and control of
the telcos to one in favor and control of Apple.

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WillThisFly
The very reason we started <http://willthisfly.net> :)

~~~
trendspotter
Cool! Great start for such kind of website!

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blacktar
Oh and tl;dr I've decided to put all my bootstrapped startup's prototyping out
in the public, declaring death to the cult of stealth startups. Would you do
the same? Are you doing it already? (edited typo)

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wyck
I agree but not all start-ups are for mass public consumption. Also what
you're essentially talking about are marketing channels, this can be time
consuming if not managed properly.

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trendspotter
Wow! Kudos for that move. There should be a place for discussing and reviewing
click-dummies and mockups somewhere on the web, if there isn't already such a
thing.

~~~
blacktar
Thanks. I guess I'll use my personal blog to share for now, keeping the
startup's blog to share more about why we're doing what we're doing and topics
around meeting new interesting people, shaping serendipity.

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danbar87
So true! Finally someone said it.

