

Is Stealth Mode Stupid? - eladgil
http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/04/is-stealth-mode-stupid.html

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snprbob86
I think "Stealth Mode" covers a pretty large range of behaviors. We're _far_
from stealth mode; we tell pretty much everyone everything that we're up to.
We have no secrets and we handle all chats/negotiations/everything with all of
our cards face up.

However, we only reveal all in face to face conversations, never in a
broadcast. This gives us more opportunities to refine our message, collect
feedback, forge real connections, and affords us the ability to do those
things without burning opportunities for first impressions and without risking
one skeptic from taring the collective perception by a group.

Using this strategy, we've been called "Stealthy" by people on the fringe of
our current network. For some, that adds a little bit to the mystique and
excitement, so they become willing to take a meeting with us. This strategy
has been pretty successful so far.

EDIT: And if you're a super smart developer in the Seattle area looking to
join a funded, early stage startup, we'll buy you a coffee/beer and reveal
all! Email me: brandon@thinkfuse.com

~~~
sardonicbryan
I agree. When I think of "Stealth Mode," I think of people who won't tell
anyone what they are doing or what their startup is about, and you actively
discourage people who know from talking about what you do.

I think that the Google behavior described doesn't fall under "stealth mode"
for me. People knew what they were doing, they just didn't know how lucrative
it was.

Might be a small distinction, but I think it's a meaningful one if you're
trying to have a discourse about strategy.

~~~
flipside
Rather than "stealth mode", "low profile mode" is best for companies in a
market that might attract a lot of attention. The most important thing is to
balance the need for attention to fuel growth against the risk of inspiring
competitors.

In other words, don't hype your startup if it will do more harm than good.
Patience is a virtue for a reason.

------
gyardley
Not being willing to talk about what you're doing to anyone is probably
foolish, yes, but Elad's got some gems here, particularly around creating
unnecessary competition.

In early 2008, when I was raising for Pinch Media, we got a bit lucky and
managed to attract some name-brand investors extremely early in the life of
our company. We hadn't figured out the business model yet, hadn't brought in a
dime in revenue, and had barely launched, but I prematurely decided to make a
big deal out of our funding from Union Square Ventures and First Round
Capital.

In retrospect, this was stupid. Not every company that ended up competing with
us did so because the USV hoopla introduced them to the opportunity, but a
handful did. Worse yet, our competitors made the same 'give it all away for
free' mistake we did, which made the mistake hard to fix. It's tricky to start
charging for something that five other companies are giving away.

If I could do it again, I would've asked USV / FRC to keep quiet about the
funding until we'd learned a bit more about our business - this isn't always
possible, but other companies in their portfolio have done so. (Kickstarter,
for example.) An extra six months or so of product development before the 'run
as fast as you can to keep ahead of very similar competitors' phase would've
been nice.

------
bhousel
I think we should be careful with all the generalizations. I agree that
stealth mode is _usually_ stupid for the _typical_ web startup.

But there are certain types of startups where it is essential to have
everything working perfectly before launching to a wide audience. Things like
BankSimple come to mind, in that launching a half-assed 'minimum viable
product' of a bank would be far worse to their reputation than staying in
stealth for years while they get everything working perfectly. I think
healthcare probably works this way too.

If your company 1. deals with people's personal data, 2. deals with thorny
legal/regulatory issues, 3. requires an extra level of trust before customers
will sign up, or 4. is in an unusually litigious space... stay in stealth
until you work out all the details.

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keeptrying
If you think about it, building a company takes about 5 years (if everything
goes right).

So essentially for someone to "steal your idea", it implies that they have to
commit their next 5 years to it.

So really you can talk freely about your idea to anyone who hasnt already
started a company and is working in a similar space or someone who has a
vested interest in a company which is working in a similar space. Thats
basically it.

Another thing google did was to never give out specifics - even the number of
computers they used was a secret for the first 2 years after they became
successful.

------
petegrif
No. As the writer points out a more nuanced approach is necessary. IMHO one of
the reasons that the 'it's all about execution' meme has become so dominant,
particularly in SV, is that VCs won't sign NDAs (for good reason). Hence it is
absolutely in their interest to inflate the importance of execution and play
down the significance of ideas. This has assumed the status of conventional
wisdom but such a one sided position is just crass.

~~~
dhimes
Agreed. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235218>

------
shawnee_
Stealth mode is stupid for many reasons.

Stealth mode is usually preceded by "overhyped". Companies that go stealth
seem to think that making one big, dramatic entrance into the startup world
will be their key to success. In reality, software is buggy, servers go awry
and crash, and support teams get overwhelmed. Unless deployment goes
flawlessly, there's more room for creating a very bad, long-lasting negative
impression if things don't go as planned.

Stealth mode is dependent upon people knowing named company is in or was in
"stealth" mode. Stealth mode is a form of hype in and of itself. But the wrong
kind of hype -- generates more hype for or about names, rather than the
product.

------
benologist
I think so. Most startups are not that impressive in their earliest days, and
almost nobody is going to care if they even know you exist. Sooner or later
you're going to reveal what you're doing and it's never going to be too late
for your competitors to react if you actually get their attention at all.

On the other hand on a community like HN you can get lots of feedback, help
and support by being open about what you're doing and what problems you're
facing.

------
keiferski
Apple, anyone? Although they aren't a startup, the fact that they are hush-
hush until the product launches is good enough (for me) to at least consider
stealth mode.

~~~
wtracy
I would argue that the only time that true 'stealth mode' actually helps is
when either your brand is already well known (as in Apple's case) or when you
have an employee or founder who is already a celebrity in the field (certainly
true for Steve Jobs).

------
michaelpinto
If you're a high profile established player in a competitive space I can see
it making sense, especially if you need the element of surprise for a launch.
An example of this would be Nintendo making a phone.

However if you're a startup and nobody knows who you are it seems a bit
foolish. By the way I would assume that anyone who isn't well know who is in
stealth mode doesn't quite know what they're doing yet.

------
stevenj
You really don't have to worry about competition until you get
users/customers.

For the most part, people copy (or at least pay close attention to) what
people buy/use.

Though, perhaps people prefer to be in stealth mode until they get some
traction behind the scenes, to stave off embarrassment.

If that's the case, I think being in stealth mode serves a useful purpose.

------
YuriNiyazov
Stealth is really stupid. Back in the day, it became difficult to charge for
website services because more and more sites were giving services away for
free. Now, it's hard to even give stuff away for free because there's too much
free stuff. So, how are you going to give away your free stuff unless you
start talking about it early, and talk about it often?

------
emp_
Depends on the problem you're trying to solve. If you are chasing a vision
without a well-established problem, you won't have the capable people discuss
it before actually making that change to the world as you dreamed, stealth can
help you stay on that path.

If the problem is well-established and you are just shaking it, revisiting it
with new eyes or fixing it forever, people will "get" it easier and will help
you alot more.

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kin
For the most part yes but, what about ideas that are extremely simple but not
so obvious? As in, some competitor with the resources can shell out a feature
in maybe a few months, but a team of 2 would take about a year. Is that valid
grounds for stealth or is stealth still dumb?

~~~
bgalbraith
This seems like one of the few cases where full on stealth mode makes sense,
and even then, only if the team is slow and the work so far amounts to nothing
more than an elevator pitch.

If the idea is something a bigger competitor would actually want, they are
probably better off letting the team do the ground work, then either acquiring
them outright or copying what they did. I would guess the biggest threats are
from other motivated small teams that could execute the idea faster to achieve
the aforementioned acquisition exit strategy.

------
bobds
It is if you call it stealth mode.

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gsteph22
Yes.

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ascendant
I think it depends on if you're investing a lot of time and money into
something that your competitors might be able to beat you to if they see you
coming.

Everyone likes to have very black-and-white yes/no answers for this but it
really depends on the idea, the competition, a million factors that are
different in each situation.

