

Ask HN: If ideas are worthless, why are some startups in stealth mode? - sendos

Common knowledge here on HN and among many startup folks is that ideas are worthless, and only execution counts.<p>If that's the case, why are some startups in stealth mode? If they have a great team that can execute, why should they care if anyone else knows what they are working on? If something is worthless, I shouldn't mind giving it to someone else. If I do mind someone else sharing what I have, it means I place some value on it.<p>Are some startups correct in wanting to be in stealth mode, or is it always a stupid idea?<p>If it makes sense that some startups should be in stealth mode, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of what they are working on has some value, which would mean that ideas sometimes do have value?<p>Maybe I'm missing something, either in what people mean by "ideas are worthless, execution is the only thing that counts", or in what people mean when they say that a startup is in stealth mode, or something else.<p>What do you guys think?
======
jdietrich
If you're not marketing to tech people, then you've got nothing to gain and
everything to lose by talking about it on places like HN.

As usual, I'll give Patrick of Bingo Card Creator as my example. He has been
completely transparent with us guys about what he's doing and how he's doing
it. We have a complete blueprint for how to compete with him. None of us are
going to bother, because it's a very small market opportunity and Patrick's
business relies upon generating lots of data, lots of inbound links and the
Googley momentum that comes with it.

Imagine if his position was slightly different. Imagine if Patrick had
discovered that a very specific group of people were prepared to pay him good
money for very trivial software. There are plenty of examples if you go
looking for them - software that took days or hours to develop but that sells
for serious money because it solves a real business problem in a low-tech
industry. The value in the business is the domain knowledge needed to identify
the market need.

If you're selling a web app to nerds, then stealth mode makes no sense. You
need to engage with your market as quickly as possible, and chances are that
someone is developing the same product anyway.

If you've spent good time and money on researching potential market
opportunities, you'd be a total idiot to give away the results of that effort
just because it's the done thing. I love getting to see the innards of so many
businesses, but it makes me cringe at the stuff people will make public.

I don't think many of us realise that the rest of the business world considers
our culture of openness to be absolutely fucking crazy. Just look at Apple -
not even Jony Ive is allowed to speak freely. We see that as weird and
Orwellian, but the rest of the business world calls it "not blabbing all our
trade secrets to the press".

~~~
gaius
Yes, the alternative to this is the patent scheme the pharma industry uses.
Think about it - a drug may be trivially simple to manufacture, the hard part
is developing it in the first place then shepherding it through the FDA
approval process. So they rely on patents because secrecy at that scale is
impossible.

For an example closer to home, did you never wonder how RMS working alone was
able to put Symbolics out of business? Because he waited for them to discover
what users wanted, the hard part, then he simply copied the implementation and
gave it away for free. If they'd gone stealth, maybe we'd all be using LispM's
today. Now we'll never know.

~~~
steve19
If one guy working from a closet at MIT can destroy your multi-million dollar
business, then you are in the wrong business.

~~~
gaius
You've completely missed my point. The hard part is NOT the coding. It's
knowing what to code, what features your users want. Symbolics did the hard
part, RMS merely copied what they (market) researched. Like the way anyone can
make a copy of a DVD once a studio has actually made the film.

~~~
rmc
Movie studios are in the business of making movies, plural. Just cause I can
copy DVDs once and set up a DVD burning shop doesn't mean I can make the next
movie. Movie studios have the process and equipment (cameras, sets), contacts
(directors, actors) to make movies.

If the hardest part of your business can be so easily copied by someone else,
then you do have a problem. If it can't be copied then you might not have a
problem

~~~
gaius
Similarly, as demonstrated by the fact that we aren't all using LispM's today,
Stallman could copy features from Symbolics but he couldn't _compete_ per se,
as he had no way of doing the hard part, which was figuring out what the end
users wanted.

------
marknutter
I think there are a few rare cases where keeping your idea close to the vest
makes sense, but overall I think it's delusional to think your ideas are worth
protecting.

Think of it this way: most, if not all ideas have already been thought of by
somebody else. Are you damaged by those people having thought of the idea
first, or are you damaged by them having executed it first? If they don't
execute, then it's just an idea, and therefore it's of no value and of little
concern to you. If they do execute, then they have something of value and it's
something you should be concerned about.

The thing about ideas is that they are usually very one-dimensional. People
will think of "foursquare for dating" like byoung2 mentioned but rarely think
past that initial idea to things like what the competitors are, what are the
barriers to entry, what will attract users, what type of design will work
best, which framework should it be built on, has it been tried before and if
so why did it fail, etc.

Of course, once you've answered all those questions you now have more than
just an "idea." You have a plan of attack, a strategy, market research, design
concepts, historical data, etc. In other words, you actually have something
worth protecting.

As far as the bias on Hacker News is concerned, I think a lot of that stems
from a couple of things:

First, there are two types of people in the startup world: ideas people and
builders (not mutually exclusive, mind you). I think builders get frustrated
by ideas people when equal value is put on the thinking up of the idea as the
actual building of the idea. I can personally attest to this; I am constantly
running into people who have a "great idea" but just need someone to build it
(for equity, of course). It's hard not to get angry at those types of
propositions. Every now and then I'll run across someone who has genuinely put
in a lot of work on the non development/design side of things and has really
thought about the ins and outs of an idea, contacted the right people, formed
the right partnerships, etc, but it's rare.

Second, everyone on hacker news has ideas. Hundreds of them. I myself come up
with at least one good idea a day. Also, a lot of us have acted on quite a few
ideas and learned how much more difficult it is to be successful than one
might initially assume. We also learn that lot of the mistakes we make with
these ideas as we build them out could have been avoided had we subjected the
idea to public scrutiny earlier in the development cycle. So when we run
across people who are protective of their ideas it makes us scratch our heads
- they're missing out on a critical component of becoming successful.

I could probably come up with hundreds of examples of sites that weren't first
to market but now dominate, the most obvious being Facebook and Google. If
ever there was a better argument for execution over ideas, I haven't seen it.

One final point: most people who have the capability to build good apps would
rather work on their own idea, not yours.

~~~
sendos
_Of course, once you've answered all those questions you now have more than
just an "idea." You have a plan of attack, a strategy, market research, design
concepts, historical data, etc. In other words, you actually have something
worth protecting._

So, are you effectively saying that the answer to the opening question is that
startups in stealth mode aren't really protecting ideas, but are protecting
the plan of attack, the strategy, market research, design concepts, historical
data, etc?

This could be true, but do startups which are _not_ in stealth mode really
divulge all that info (plan of attack, strategy, market research, etc) to the
public? It seems that the difference between stealth mode and non-stealth mode
is simply in telling the public what you are working on. This is the knowledge
that is deemed, by stealth startups, valuable enough to keep secret, i.e. the
knowledge of what they are working on.

~~~
marknutter
Well, it think it depends a lot on who's working in the startup. If it's got
several founders of other wildly successful companies attached to it, both in
terms of board members and actual employees, then the idea by itself may be
worth something. The idea has essentially been fully endorsed by some very
knowledgeable people who have had success at picking the right ideas in the
past. If the startup is run by a bunch of nobodies, who really cares? Most
startups are run by nobodies though, and honestly I could care less what their
ideas are unless they've had some great successes in the past.

~~~
stanleydrew
> honestly I could care less what their ideas are unless they've had some
> great successes in the past.

That's pretty shallow don't you think?

~~~
marknutter
That came off a bit harsh. I mean, I could care less about stealing their
ideas if they haven't got a track record. I obviously find everyone's ideas
and startups interesting, otherwise I wouldn't be on HN as often as I am.

------
HSO
The point of "stealth mode" is timing. You can gain significant market
advantage by springing the surprise on your (potential) competitors instead of
giving them X months advance notice of your plans and ideas.

Prominent recent example: ipad 2010. It was rumored alright, still I bet it
led to significant constipation at Plastic Logic, Microsoft, or Amazon, not to
mention all those netbook builders. To think that Plastic Logic thought they
could get away with a price point of more than the iPad's 500 USD for a mere
reading device... Now they are scrambling, and perhaps they will find a viable
strategy in the future, but still, they are all "behind the curve", and that
has as much to do with Apple's execution as with the fact that Apple didn't
announce its plans for the iPad 18 months before introduction.

~~~
ent
I thought the ipad caught the competition off guard not because of the timing,
people have made slate tablets before, but because of the pricing. When
rumours of the ipad started to float around, most people seemed to believe it
would be a ~$1000 device.

------
wrs
The PR value of launching a complete product can be higher than trickling out
iterations on an idea. "Today we're announcing we think we know how to build a
faster database" vs. "Today we're announcing we've built a database that
benchmarks 10X faster than MySQL" -- which one gets more headlines?

Of course you could trickle out ideas and then launch, but that risks being
regarded as "old news" when you finally do release a product. That's totally
unfair but often does happen.

~~~
sendos
You bring up a good point, but is that really the reason most stealth startups
choose the stealth route? Isn't it more common due to them not wanting
competitors to start working on their idea?

~~~
kiwidrew
Speaking as the co-founder of a startup that's still in 'stealth mode', this
is precisely why we haven't launched yet. We reckon that doing a launch event
is a one-of-a-kind stimulus. You can't really launch twice, at least not with
the same impact. Just like you can take (too much) funding at too early a
stage, you can also launch at too early a stage... we want to make sure that
we're at a point where we can capitalize on the momentum of a launch event
first.

------
theBobMcCormick
Ideas may be worthless, but information isn't.

Having an idea for a better mousetrap, as a trite example, isn't by itself
worth much. It's only valuable if you can _build_ the better mousetrap, build
it at a profitable pricepoint, convince the world they _need_ a better
mousetrap, etc.

But if you're already in the mousetrap business, the information that a new
competitor is planning to launch a better mousetrap _might_ be very valuable
information.

------
Towle_
It should be noted that many of the big names who claim ideas are worthless
have a vested interest in you believing that.

------
byoung2
It makes sense to stay in stealth mode if you believe that someone else can
execute on your idea before you can. For a simple idea (e.g. Foursquare for
dating), if your idea gets out, there could be another team who could whip up
a prototype in a few weeks, so maybe it's better to stay stealth. For
something like RethinkDB, there's little risk in revealing your idea, because
it would be very difficult for someone else to execute their idea first.

~~~
sendos
Yes, but if it makes sense to stay in stealth mode for the reasons you
outline, doesn't that mean that there is value in the knowledge of what you
are working on, i.e. there is value in ideas?

~~~
byoung2
The monetary value of an idea that lives in your head is like the monetary
value of your liver. It may be priceless to you, but it is worthless to
everyone else until you surgically remove it (execution).

------
psyklic
It is all psychology. If someone believes in an idea enough to invest in it,
then others are much more likely to invest in it. So, an idea with resources
committed to it is worth more than one without.

The ironic part is that the idea itself is not what is invested in. Often
there is an attribution error where we hear that "he's making X, so we should
make an X clone." However, the important thing invested in is not the idea X,
but instead X+the team+the business plan. Of course, the media often does not
mention the latter two.

------
d0m
It may sound a bit boastful but I know I can find lots of good idea. I keep
writing them everywhere. I see new apps coming out with idea I had years ago.
And since I realized that, I don't care anymore talking about them.

Talking about ideas actually make them better since you learn if it was really
that great.. or you only thought it was great but it's just bad.

Last thing, you start with an idea.. but as you work through, it changes a
lot. So, even if someone would start with the same idea, the end product would
be totally different. That's also another reason to publish really fast.. you
see if your idea was worthwhile and you can improve on it with feedback.

And, real last thing, from my experience, sometime it isn't that bad to be in
stealth mode for the "general public" because if you show them something ugly
visually, they might just ignore it by thinking it sucks. So what I do is, I
show sketches and prototypes, but not the evolution of my prototype. So,
people say "Wow" instead of "Hmm, that could be interesting. (Thinking, ugh
wtf is that.)".

~~~
mst
There's another crucial point here - if you can't get acclaim for your idea
without having the product as well, that's a major motivator to get the
product working.

So sometimes stealth mode is a good idea in order to make yourself get
developing, rather than in order to keep the idea itself from the outside
world.

------
araneae
I remember reading somewhere that talking about a project you're going to
start makes you less likely to work on it, because talking about it is
satisfying.

If you go public, you might be less motivated to actually make progress. I've
found this to be true for myself, but I can't remember where this idea came
from... I wish I had a citation for you.

~~~
mikecane
OK, I'll get hell for this, but still, it fits. I probably have a less "airy"
quote somewhere, but this is what I found right now. All the next text is
quote:

I cannot emphasize too strongly that you should tell no one just what the
words on the cards mean nor give anyone an inkling of what you desire. To do
so may end disastrously for you. When you get a better understanding of this
science, you can understand how thought vibrations -- conscious or
unconscious, because of envy or some other cause -- can be set up to
counteract your own,

To illustrate this, I am reminded of a doctor friend who applied for a
commission in the Navy during the early days of World War II. He closed his
office, told everyone that he was joining the Navy, and found himself the
recipient of many parties and gifts. "It taught me a lesson never to tell
anyone of my plans or desires," he laughingly told me later. "It was two years
before I received notice of assignment, and meanwhile I had to go back into
private practice, It certainly was embarrassing to get all those various
farewell gifts, only to cool my heels at home for two years."

The truth is that when you talk about what you're going to do, you scatter
your forces. You lose your close connection with the subconscious, and unless
you do as directed here, you will frequently have to start all over again in
your program of achievement.

"Go and tell no man," still holds true. \-- The Magic of Believing - Claude M.
Bristol; pg. 87

------
naner
_Common knowledge here on HN and among many startup folks is that ideas are
worthless, and only execution counts.

If that's the case, why are some startups in stealth mode?_

Ok, that's asinine, I hope we didn't really say that. Execution is almost
always the part where value is created (i.e. where you get paid), that is the
hard part. The part where skill is involved. But ideas aren't valueless. In
fact the control of information is power. Which is why people keep secrets.

~~~
jaxn
I disagree.

Search Google for "who will buy my idea". The second result is a short tongue-
in-cheek where I offer to buy ideas for $0.02. I get phone calls and emails on
a regular basis from people actually wanting to sell ideas. They get to me
because no one buys ideas.

The exception? Nuclear secrets maybe. Even then it is not the idea, but rather
the schematics, etc.

So, to the original poster's question, why don't stealth mode startups at
least put the problem they are solving on their homepage? I think the answer
is fear. My take is usually that if it is that easy to replicate then they
shouldn't be doing it. If the reason they are doing an easy to replicate
product is because they are masters at sales and marketing, then I would think
they wouldn't be that afraid of someone out selling them.

------
SMrF
I wish I had time to write a longer post, but I have to catch my train.
Suffice it to say the stealth startup is a relic. It's like waterfall
methodology is to agile development. It had its day and its uses, but now
there are better ways to create a startup.

Here is a fantastic essay on this very topic:
[http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/01/achieving-
failu...](http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/01/achieving-failure.html)

------
KirkWylie
I'm the CEO of a VC-backed financial technology company that's been in stealth
mode for almost a year (coming out of the proverbial closet later on today),
and we had a number of reasons for doing it.

First, we needed to give ourselves breathing room, where we weren't
distracted. Requests for demos before you're ready, requests for interviews
with the press, requests for information by potential investors all take time,
which is time that you should better be spending building your product.

Second, we didn't want to alert our competitors to what we're doing. While we
didn't believe that any of them could innovate faster than we were, we didn't
want them to know what our marketing and technology direction was, and thus
try to poison the market's mind to our message before we could give it in our
own words. Otherwise, by the time we DID give it in our own words, people
would have predisposed to think badly of it.

There's also the non-customer competition to think of: recruiters (we're in a
hyper-competitive market for talent), who will know what you're doing and
target your employees; VCs who will at least ponder the notion of grabbing a
team and overcapitalizing them and say "do that idea and get it to market
before the other guys." This might seem far-fetched, but if you don't have any
real benefit in opening to the world, they're definite potential downsides.

Finally, we needed to make sure that we had something very tangible to show
the world (i.e. customers) when we do come out. If we had made a big display
of our story, and then gotten customers interested, and then said "thanks for
your interest; come back in a year when we have a demo to show you" it would
have been a complete turnoff. Most of the people who we think of as prospects
will find out about the company now, and we're ready to come in and give a
professional display of what we're doing.

What we DIDN'T do was go completely dark. People who we knew and trusted we've
worked with the whole time. People who we felt could add value we sought out.
We didn't just go into a bunker, but we didn't splash our wares out there for
anyone in the world to see.

Stealth-mode is definitely an option for the right firm.

------
mikesimonsen
"Stealth Mode" when used properly, is an effective marketing tool that leads
to a big launch event. We're building, working with initial customers, and
when we launch it'll be huge!

"Stealth Mode" used ignorantly means, "we're unwilling to discuss our idea
with anyone for fear they'll steal it."

Big difference.

------
xutopia
My company is currently in stealth mode. I don't think the tech or what we try
to accomplish needs to be hidden but we signed some partnership deals with big
old-school players and they're the ones requiring us to remain stealth until
we release.

------
ryanjmo
Most people are too busy to stop whatever they are doing with their life and
steal your idea.

Also, if two people execute the same idea, because products change so much in
implementation they will likely end with different enough products that they
will not be directly competing by product launch.

------
chrischen
Yes, you are missing something about what people mean by "ideas are worthless,
execution is the only thing that counts."

When people say that, they are usually referring to an untested bare idea.
That is worthless (or has negligible worth) because it has not been tested. If
a startup is in stealth, then maybe their "idea" has been tested, or they have
proof it's worth something. But a random idea by default is not worth anything
because it requires proper execution to test for its worth.

So let's say I told a guy hey I got this cool idea for a website that let's
people upload videos and share them. Let's pretend no element of this idea has
been tested, that, there has been no indication in society that people like to
watch videos. Let's say I did this 10 years ago. To some untrained person,
there's no difference between that idea and an idea where people can share
photos of their underwear. To a sufficiently untrained person (let's say the
average person is sufficiently untrained), both ideas are equally worthless
because no element of either idea had been tested at the time. So if two ideas
have the same starting point whereas no element of the idea has been tested to
be potentially successful, then both are worthless at that point.

However let's say I have another idea, and it revolves around letting people
video chat with each other online. So in this hypothetical universe, watching
videos has no predetermined usefulness, however it turns out people like to
chat with each other. So the element of this idea revolving around chatting
with strangers has established value, but the part pairing it with video is
new. So it has some possible value now, unfortunately it's common knowledge
people like to chat with each other, so because of the ubiquity of that idea
element the value drops back down to zero. But let's say it wasn't common
knowledge that chatting was popular, and instead through some tests we
discovered that. Now the idea has value because we've proved it has value but
only we know about it. We would probably proceed to stealth mode to implement
such a thing to take advantage of this discovery.

------
eavc
Ideas aren't worthless. They are a necessary but not sufficient condition for
success.

The "ideas are worthless" meme is hyperbole and groupthink.

------
dotBen
There are times when you have a great idea that actually isn't very difficult
to execute but will provide huge value.

In those examples, it really isn't worth revealing your idea because someone
else will execute before you.

------
sp332
If a competitor knows where you're going, they can focus on stopping you from
getting there. If they don't know, they have to play defensively and spread
their resources wider.

------
damoncali
The idea that "ideas are worthless" is just a gross overstatement designed to
knock some sense into people who are so afraid of sharing their thoughts that
they lock up. It's no coincidence that the people most often spouting the
cliche are in the venture funding business.

Ideas, of course, are not worthless. Ideas are information, and if the
internet has told us one thing, it's that information (and the control of
information) is very, very powerful.

------
AmberShah
The reason we started in stealth mode was to hope to launch at TechCrunch50.
It has since been cancelled and it's pseudo replacement, The Launch
Conference, is not slated until 2011 so it's a no-go.

Since we already said "We're in stealth" it then became weird to say "Here's
what we're doing" without actually launching at the same time. However, we
have dropped enough hints that most people following totally get it.

Someone has actually already copied our idea (doing the same thing, with a
similar name, exact same pre-launch strategy, etc) I'm 100% sure it's a copy
because too many elements are EXACTLY the same and I know for sure the person
was following the blog and twitter well before starting his own. In that
respect, being MORE in stealth would have actually helped ward off copy-cats
like that until we were ready to launch.

------
davcro
Stealth mode is reserved for high profile entrepreneur's or successful
business's that can be easily copied. Also stealth mode should not mean
private beta. Stealth mode should mean hiding from potential competitors. For
example, I'm a Facebook developer which means the apps I create are for
everyday consumers. A TechCrunch article or HN post about one of my apps would
have a negligible impact on sales or traffic, but it would attract
competitors. For that reason I avoid that form of publicity.

If I was a high profile entrepreneur working on a top secret project, I still
wouldn't do a private beta. Instead I would block IP's belonging to tech savvy
states like California and countries like China. Actually I think it is a good
idea to block all of Asia. The majority of clones of my apps are created by
people in China.

------
CyberFonic
If information was of no value, then we wouldn't have insider trading laws,
nor intellectual property laws. Stealth mode attempts to avert premature
competition. If you don't set out to make money, then release early! Linux is
an excellent example of where stealth mode would have inhibited the project.

~~~
patrickk
Ah, but insider trading concerns shares, which are (usually) highly liquid and
have a proven market value. As for IP, if a company is
patents/trademarks/copyrights an asset, they anticipate that the asset is
valuable enough to defend legally. This may or may not be the case, depending
on the asset in question.

A startup's stealth product is unproven, and it may turn out that it has
little or no value.

Hence: whether or not information has value depends on the information in
question.

------
spoiledtechie
I have several ideas that could make millions. Honestly, but I am only one
person and I don't have a team of developers. Wish I did, but I don't. I also
don't have the money to quit my job either. So I keep my ideas extremely close
to center so I can work on them one at a time.

Heck, I even have an idea that would change the way politics in general is
viewed by the public. Its revolutionary and could have a huge influence on
changing the world, but I currently can't develop for it because I don't have
the time. Its an amazing idea and I wish it was out there, but I would rather
wait till I personally can change the world. I don't want someone else doing
it, so I keep my idea private until Im ready to start working on it.

~~~
tron_carter
If you have a revolutionary idea that could really change politics and you're
keeping it for that perfect moment when everything in your life aligns, it's
foolish. If the idea has merit, let someone with the time and passion work on
bringing it to life and show the impact.

Going to your grave with a pocketful of possibilities is not only a disservice
to yourself, but also pretty selfish.

~~~
samedhi
Damn hippie talk. ;)

------
bizwiz2
Because sometimes opportunities for your execution can only be had by be
stealthy or by being first.

------
kmfrk
There are times where going into stealth mode might have its merits, but
start-ups where the main concern for revealing their project is "What if
someone does it better than us?" are obviously unlikely to be destined for
great things.

ReadWriteWeb had a great article on this with this fantastic quote: "I always
liked the saying that the early bird gets the worm. However, the second mouse
gets the cheese."

[http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/first-mover-
advant...](http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/first-mover-advantage-
about-compound-interest-not-market-share.php)

------
moxiemk1
I always thought the point of being a stealth startup was that your idea was
relatively easy to copy in a not-quite-as-good way.

Thus, if you were wide open some "entrepreneuring" company comes along,
replicate it, and gain the first-to-market boost, while you are still trying
to finish.

With a "stealth mode," a company can make a polished product and spring it on
the market all at once, leaving no time for half-assed copies.

So, I'd say it upholds the thought that it's about execution, not the idea.
The stealth enables you to release better execution without competitive
pressure to release.

------
robryan
I think if you have an established player who can jump into your area without
a large investment it makes sense to keep your project a secret. The initial
jump you get on them before they can counter could be enough time to gain some
traction.

This probably isn't always the case and I think most of s probably err pretty
heavily on the side of caution, I know I can be secretive at times for little
real reason. Just would hate to release something then around the same time
have a competitor steal the limelight with a release that addresses everything
you were doing to differentiate your product.

------
JFisch
If your respected and well known, you better keep your novel ideas secret,
cause people will try to copy you because they assume your ideas are valuable.

It is not as important when you starting out.

------
jeromec
An idea is a starting point. That's it. It's like loading the first page into
the typewriter for a novel -- the real work has yet to be done, and success is
not guaranteed. One reason to keep things private is being able to work (and
stumble along) with peace of mind it's unlikely others are doing the hard work
of figuring out how to execute correctly. If others know you're working on it,
they may take that as the validation they should be working on figuring it out
(and possibly failing) too!

------
iampims
Being the first on a new market has many advantages. It doesn't guarantee long
term success, but — many times — it has proven to be worth it. For ideas that
don't require heavy investments in infrastructure, and with the abundance of
open source clones of commercial software, the "time to market" has decreased
tremendously and matters even more. A good execution will make your idea
shine, and being first to release it doesn't hurt either, hence the stealth
mode.

------
fjabre
Here's my 2 cents:

The idea is the execution. An new idea is worthless. It's the refined ideas
you arrive at after you've executed a prototype that are worth something. It's
because those ideas can be tested and played with and refined. You can't
refine a idea without building something first.

So it's not that execution is everything and ideas are nothing - it's that
truly good ideas are the result of iteration and execution.

------
mikecane
“Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good,
you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” \-- Howard Aiken
[http://thinkexist.com/quotation/don-
t_worry_about_people_ste...](http://thinkexist.com/quotation/don-
t_worry_about_people_stealing_your_ideas-if/11068.html)

------
p206
Another question could be "why are we often being told that ideas are
worthless?" IMHO it's because the focus should be on getting things done
instead of sitting around while trying to come up with a "perfect" idea. This
advice is valid in a specific situation that companies in stealth mode are
just not in.

------
hariis
It is their execution that is in stealth mode not the idea itself and Details
of an idea is part of execution.

~~~
fjabre
Couldn't agree more. It's the details of the idea resulting from execution
that make all the difference. That part of it should be in stealth.

------
fezzl
Ideas are not worthless; in fact, good ideas can save you a lot of resources.
I say this because ideas are inextricably linked to the market size and market
potential. If the market is declining, too small, or non-existent, you are not
going to be able to execute your way out of a bad idea.

------
joeld42
My understanding is that's it more about marketing rather than people stealing
your idea. You may want to emerge on the scene with a new product and
concentrate the media buzz rather than having information trickle out and have
it seem like old news when you launch.

------
warrenwilkinson
I did stealth mode. Now I'm paying for it by having to slowly build SEO
ranking. If I had at least setup a blog and talked about my ideas, I would
have more beta-testers today, more interest, and more brand recognition.

------
rythie
Because some people think the idea is important and if anyone were to hear it,
they would surely copy. However, people don't tend to copy unproven ideas,
they see traction then copy.

------
davidw
Ideas aren't worthless, but they're not 'excludable' and so there is no market
for them. Well, maybe a bit for patents, but that doesn't seem to be a very
healthy market...

------
andrewljohnson
I think everyone in stealth mode is probably making a mistake. The minute
people start copying everything you do, is the minute you know you've won the
whole ballgame.

------
Concours
Ideas aren't worthless unless you can't execute, and in this case they are
only worthless for you, not for the rest of peoples who can execute.

------
osipov
because all ideas are worthless but some ideas are more worthless than others
;)

On a serious note, some ideas can produce multi-billion dollar businesses
while other ideas have limited, niche potential. Hence a greater incentive to
keep the idea secret.

------
inboulder
Because implementing them isn't.

------
JoeAltmaier
Its market timing. Sure you need SOME idea, its necessary but far from
sufficient.

------
MartinCron
Ideas may be worthless, but public failure is embarrassing as hell.

------
matthewcford
Because they haven't fully formulated their idea yet.

------
kashif
because some people disagree with that idea. I don't.

------
capital_omega
Answer: ideas aren't worthless.

An idea has no value to you if you can't execute, but it has long-term value
if you might be able to do so in the future, and it definitely has value to
competitors who may wish to execute it now.

[Edit: Also, "ideas are worthless" sounds like the speak of arrogant VCs who
want to downplay the importance of entrepreneurs... I've never heard an
entrepreneur make such a statement.]

~~~
zalew
Ideas aren't worthless, they're worth 1/12 of a dime, because "Ideas are a
dime a dozen"

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_State_Quarters>

"The idea of a circulating commemorative has been around the hobby for
decades, but frankly, good ideas are a dime a dozen. Far more rare is the
ability to move an idea to reality,"

