

Stealth Startups Are Stupid - Ataub24
http://alexstechthoughts.com/post/57614571209/stealth-startups-are-stupid

======
Oculus
I think their are valid times when stealth can be important. The most
prominent example I know of would be Siri. In the words of Adam Cheyer: _I 'm
convinced that staying in stealth mode was critical to our success._

He goes on to explain why: _We were based on some fairly heavy technologies
(natural language understanding, conversational dialog, context, local search,
plan-based service delegation, PCI-compliant data stores, machine learning),
and it took us two years to go from our initial prototype to something ready
to deploy and scale. A few weeks after we launched, Steve Jobs called the
office and the rest is history. As a startup, we were potentially competing
with large companies with lots of resources (e.g. Google, Microsoft), and we
needed a good running head start before anyone knew precisely what we were
trying to accomplish.

For a more user-facing, social website where getting the right features is
important, don't be stealthy, just get it up and iterate (c.f.
[http://change.org](http://change.org)). But if you have a technology that
takes some time to get right, being stealthy enables you to have buzz when you
emerge and the head-start you need to compete with anyone._

Here's the link: [http://www.quora.com/Stealth-Startups/Is-there-a-single-
exam...](http://www.quora.com/Stealth-Startups/Is-there-a-single-example-of-a-
company-that-started-in-stealth-mode-and-launched-to-success)

~~~
ignostic
Would Siri not have worked if the company hadn't been in stealth?

Google and Microsoft had already been working on speech technologies at this
point. In fact, Google was already integrating voice into Android in 2008,
well before Siri had a personal assistant. Microsoft has to date failed to
capitalize on their significant investments in speech recognition in any
meaningful way.

Siri seems more successful in speech technology than Microsoft, despite
Microsoft's heavy investment and more than a decade of trying to make it work
for them. If anything, this seems like proof that execution is what counts.

What about the idea, then? Would Google have cared that Siri was launching a
personal assistant if they knew in 2009? I doubt it: they already saw natural
speech as the future. Brin and Page sometimes talk about talking to computers
naturally being on of their visions almost from founding. Computer personal
assistants with computer voices appeared in sci-fi movies as far back as the
80s, and perhaps even farther back. This was _not_ a new idea.

It's Siri's product - the execution - that made waves in the industry. Large
organizations tend not to take notice of startups with ideas. There are simply
too many people with great ideas for large companies to worry about.

Stealth startups may, in rare cases, be the right decision. I simply doubt the
extent to which Siri's success was highly dependent on it's pre-launch
stealthiness.

~~~
JanezStupar
The uncanny valley.

What made waves in the industry was the level of polish that Siri had when it
was first shown to the masses.

Had people seen all the lame stages of the product the baseline attitude would
be "meh", don't care.

Which is exactly the attitude most of its users have today. However, when it
was unvelied the sheer unexpected novelty certainly drove some sales.

------
yajoe
> _If you need to be stealth so you don’t tip off competitors, you need to
> really re-think if you are building a long-term business... At the end of
> the day, being a startup in “stealth mode” happens when founders put too
> much value in ideas, and not execution._

May I propose a contrarian narrative?

I see experienced founders use the "stealth mode" veil specifically because
they _are_ focusing on execution and don't really want to waste time in polite
conversation debating the merits of an idea or rehashing a list of
competitors. Talking too much about ideas is deleterious to the focus needed
for building products. Sometimes the brain needs a break and a person wants to
connect with other human beings for something other than work.

I'm sorry you weren't able to judge the last 5 people based on their ideas!
You found another way, bravo!

~~~
Ataub24
They don't need to tell you the full story. But saying- we are trying to solve
how people discover new products that their friends buy. We should have a
product out in the next few months. That's a lot better than saying we are
stealth. You didn't give away anything.

Ya feel me?

~~~
cargo8
The problem is the response to that is almost always "Oh you mean like
______?". The answer to that is almost certainly no, but you can't really say
or explain why unless you reveal too much about your startup at too early a
stage. Then people get the impression you are working on some stupid idea that
has already been done.

There are a lot of reasons not to reveal what you are working on exactly, but
giving the industry isn't necessarily the best thing to do either. A lot of
experienced founders will also do this because they don't want wild rumors
flying around about what they are building / working on next from a one-liner
that they mentioned without wanting or being able to get into the details
about it with some stranger.

------
tb303
I know of some currently successful companies whose founders used meaningful,
honest, yet vague phrases like "we're trying to change the way people
___________". And they did. And I know of about 5x the startups whose founders
used the phrase "we're in stealth mode" whose isolated, protected ideas showed
complete mismatch with market need when launched.

Why?

Because that isolation reflects arrogance. You have two options here:

a) say your vague idea and hear from people who care about it, getting more
data, more ideas, more market need (or lack of), more competitive landscape,
etc.

e.g.,

The line: "We're working on fixing the calendar" Person: "Have you tried
Sunrise? It's great, but I can't use it because it asks for permissions my
security team won't allow"

This gives you, as product creator, info.

Or maybe the person wants to come work with you, or knows someone who is
passionate about it, or knows someone wanting to invest in that, etc.

b) Say "we're in stealth mode"

This shuts down any opportunity immediately.

I guess b) is reasonable when you are disinterested in further conversation
(totally legitimate)[1], otherwise it just accomplishes nothing other than
providing an air of arrogance.

[1] When I was at Apple in mid 00s, the standard line to strangers was "sorry,
we're prohibited from discussing features or future products for legal
reasons". This shut down conversation immediately, which was the intention.

------
mattzito
I generally agree - but the only thing I'll say to defend stealth startups is
that sometimes it makes sense to keep quiet until you have something to show
people. Not for competitive reasons, or because you're worried someone's going
to steal your idea, but because you want to stop your idea from being judged
out of context or before it's ready.

Once it's ready (enough) to be shown, at least then people will judge it fully
baked, instead of basing their opinion on the elevator pitch.

~~~
Ataub24
It's totally okay to keep quiet about what you are working on- but you
typically have a vision or idea of what problem you are trying to tackle. You
can just talk about that when people ask you...

------
ivankirigin
Yes. There is a world of difference between talking publicly about your ideas
and talking privately. It is incredibly ignorant to assume the person you're
talking to is going to somehow hurt your business.

Not only that, but you miss the opportunity to get feedback on your idea,
making you more likely to fail.

------
aclimatt
One thing that worries me about "stealth" start-ups is that it implies (not
all the time, but often) a lack of market research and validation ahead of
time. While there are ways to get potential customers excited about a product
and challenge your assumptions without necessarily revealing everything, more
often than not, it seems like the majority of the assumptions will not be
tested until launch, which ends up being a few hundred thousand (or million)
too late. [0][1][2]

There are some products that don't necessarily need that level of validation
ahead of time. There are some founders who have networks so wide, that they
can start with a userbase of 5,000 people regardless of what they build. But
for everybody else, proper validation of your assumptions might be the one
thing saving your start-up from failure. And not telling anybody about it
seems like a pretty easy way to get there.

[0] [http://www.businessinsider.com/33-startups-that-died-
reveal-...](http://www.businessinsider.com/33-startups-that-died-reveal-why-
they-failed-2013-6?op=1)

[1]
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/03/19/warning-7-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/03/19/warning-7-steps-
to-startup-failure/)

[2] [http://jamesmaskell.co.uk/2013/why-vinetrade-
failed/](http://jamesmaskell.co.uk/2013/why-vinetrade-failed/)

------
amirmc
This reminds me of the hilarious "A day in the life of a startup founder" by
jgrahamc [1]. It's the first place I learned about double-stealth mode.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4166183)

~~~
igorgue
Obvious troll is obvious?

------
orenbarzilai
As some one once said (can't remember who) "stealth mode is for fighter jets
not startups"

~~~
moocowduckquack
What about startups building fighter jets?

~~~
orenbarzilai
regular fighter jets or stealth jets?

------
chmike
Of course replying to an inquiry that the project is in stealth mode is like a
slap in the face. This can be avoided by using a decoy project. This will be
less brutal and will avoid attracting attention.

Regarding secrecy, obviously the secret sauce has to be kept secret. But the
problem one tries to address can be exposed and will allow to collect new
feedback. This is valuable because if the existence and seriousness of the
problem you try to address is confirmed you earn a new prospect and a new
validation of the pertinence of the project. You may also learn new aspects of
the problems or expected solutions you may have initially overlooked.

------
bencollier49
I'm not sure I wholeheartedly agree with this. Giving potential competitors
months of lead time to either clone the USP of a startup or make changes to
lessen its impact doesn't seem terribly sensible in a lot of situations.

------
eladgil
I think the value of stealth mode really depends on context. E.g. I think
GroupOn's series A created a lot of competition, as VCs all told their
portfolio companies to pivot in that direction.
[http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/04/is-stealth-mode-
stupid.html](http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/04/is-stealth-mode-stupid.html)

------
threepipeproblm
Based on what? Here is an elegant statement of the opposite point of view by
Peter Thiel, which includes a coherent argument.
[http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels-
cs183-...](http://blakemasters.com/post/22866240816/peter-thiels-
cs183-startup-class-11-notes-essay)

~~~
gergles
This statement is far from 'elegant', it is tens of thousands of words that
ultimately say nothing. The relevant section is 7B, which says that their
ultimate success was _not_ keeping a secret!

~~~
threepipeproblm
No it doesn't. 7b says "The right time to bring people in is rarely at the
very beginning, all at once." It also says that whether or not (or to what
degree) stealth mode makes sense depends on the environment.

------
federicola
Time ago was on a workshop with a serial entrepreneur/investor on SV, and he
told to the audience to be not afraid to tell to "the right people" your
idea(you need to let the world know about your business) "at right time".

------
hynahmwxsbyb
How did this get upvoted? This is an old coversation and the article didn't
actually add anything to the debate. Very spammy. Let's keep HN fat free.

------
visarga
Overgeneralizations are ...

------
workbench
Don't know why you expected anything else from an "ideas guy"

------
AsymetricCom
YCombinator would say that..

