

Why Bother With Stealth Mode? - jrussbowman
http://joerussbowman.tumblr.com/post/1020404532/why-bother-with-stealth-mode

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antirez
I think stealth mode is not just for the fear of your idea to get stolen,
there are a few good reasons IMHO to start quiet in the first stage:

1) You may significantly change what you are doing once you actually started
working. Maybe you start with a backup company and ends with a file transfers
for the masses.

2) People eventually start to get bored about hearing just words without the
ability to try what you have to offer. Probably at the release there will be
less excitement... so the stealth mode is a good idea IMHO until there is yet
not some non-vaporware thing to show.

3) In the first strage of a startup you will likely get crazy with a lot of
work. Managing the communication is a very time consuming task, it's better to
delay this as much as possible, that is, when you are starting to actually
have users.

4) Stealth does not mean that people should not be aware at all of your
existence. Actually to have the brand, logo, and a very general idea of what
you are doing (just the field: databases, social things, ...) can be good and
sometimes absolutely required in order to try hiring other programmers and so
forth.

Once you have a minimally viable product is definitely time to release it
ASAP: users feedbacks and pressure will be invaluable.

~~~
jrussbowman
I think then maybe I did follow the basic model you suggest. I don't think at
the first "launch" my product was completely viable. It had a lot of bugs and
was pretty ugly. However getting people I didn't know to look at it really
drove me through the first point you made. The product and idea changed
dramatically through a very organic process driven by feedback.

I am seeing the point you and the other commenter are making about product and
market fit though. The other ideas I have are similar scenarios to the one I'm
working on now, where the same approach basically fits. So really I may be
just be over generalizing.

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tptacek
It depends on your market.

If you're entering a competitive space, announcing before launching gives your
competitors the option of trying to neutralize you at little or no cost, by
announcing that they're going to offer similar features. This clearly does
happen sometimes.

It looks like YC has nailed an answer to the "stealth mode" controversy that
kind of moots the question: move as fast as you can towards releasing a
minimal viable product. The working concept trumps the smoke screen.

~~~
robryan
Yeah, I'd say I work in a semi stealth mode. I'm happy to discuss with people
I meet and it's not exactly hidden.

But at the same time I'm not plastering it online and listing exact features,
no problem competing with bigger competition but if they were to remove any
competitive advantage I would have before launch it would make it a lot
harder.

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webwright
I used to be pretty anti-stealth-- in fact, I have a blog post draft attacking
the whole idea. Meet the post that turned me around:
[http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-
trada%E2%8...](http://trada.com/blog/2010/03/31/the-stealth-mode-
trada%E2%80%99s-position-on-staying-stealth/)

I think a hybrid approach is best. Talk to as many people as you need to to
move the ball forward, but don't start shouting from the rooftops until you're
ready.

~~~
mkramlich
Agreed. Talk to enough people to do the customer development and product
development needed, otherwise, stay fairly mum about it. If/when you get
traction, and you think the upside is greater than the downside, then start
making a lot of noise.

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skowmunk
There will almost always be a lot of people thinking about and/or working on
the same ideas that one is thinking about. Others working on them might have
dedicated certain amount of resources to accomplish a certain pace of
progress.

If one makes their plans public, it might inpsire others to bring in more
resources to increase their pace and beat you to the market. In such acase all
one would be doing is provide free marketing for that product.

Of course, this is just one perspective. Going public also has its advantages,
just like going in stealth mode has its disadvantages, one of them being the
difficulty of attracting talent.

At the end, what matters is which option one chooses to leverage that option's
advantages and what one does or can do to nullify the disadvantages of the
same option.

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drgath
It's not about the idea, or being the first, it's all about execution (and
luck). FourSquare is killing it right now, but they were about the 5th major
player into the geo check-in playing field. Online coupons have been around
for a decade prior to Groupon. Facebook was late to the social networking
party by about 5 years. There were hundreds of major search engines prior to
Google. StackExchange & Quora certainly aren't the inventors of the online
answers market.

Stealth mode is silly, because you need competition to validate your business.
You need to learn from your competition and get feedback from the public to
tweak your product. If you are the only one pursuing something, odds are it
isn't worth pursuing.

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jiganti
You bother with stealth mode when you have an idea that doesn't require
stellar execution to be successful. The concept needs to be pretty simple, but
original and useful.

I'll say it time and time again, people who think ideas aren't valuable on
their own just haven't come up with any great ideas yet.

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spotted_at
I agree. Thats what I did. I made spotted.at and just want to get as much
feedback as possible. My steath mode = My product sucks and not many people
use it. As my product gets better and more people use it I guess im not
stealth anymore. LOL

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davcro
I agree with the author. Stealth mode assumes you will deliver a competitive
and popular product in your first try. This rarely happens.

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joey_bananas
People think it sounds kinda cool, and if Apple if secretive it must be good,
right?

