I hadn’t heard anyone talk about a “Stealth Start-Up” for a month or two but when someone recently used the term to describe the current stage of their internet based business (or should I say project) I once again chuckled.
“Why chuckle?” you ask.
Well – to want or need to operate in stealth mode means 1 of 3 things:
So let’s analyze these possibilities to see if we can find where the chuckle comes from.
Reason One
Anyone who would give this reason thinks too little of themselves, or too much of who they are speaking to, to say that they are not actually doing anything solid at the moment.
Reason Two
Anyone who gives this reason fails to understand that there are 6 billion people in the world and that someone else, somewhere else, has the same idea and that one needs all the help and input possible in order to make sure that the execution and distribution of your product or service is better than that being delivered by someone else, somewhere else.
Reason Three
Anyone who gives this reason must think the whole of the world is constantly waiting and looking for the product or service they are delivering. If this was the case then I wouldn’t worry about watering down a marketing message!
Most products and services on the net these days have a shareware or open source version. People don’t pay for ideas – they pay for products or services – and these require execution. Execution can’t be done in a vacuum and thus I am hard pressed to find a situation where stealth mode is ever the best way to operate.
Can anyone enlighten us as to why stealth is best?
by Dan Simard
Ouch! I talk to a lot of people who have “ideas” and they seem to think that this is “a good start”. I’m sorry but the best idea in the world have zero value if you do nothing with it (and that’s what happens with many ideas).
For the “stealth mode”, we at TimmyOnTime once didn’t talk a lot about our idea because we were afraid someone could stole it to us. We have a complete different way of doing things now because we discuss a lot with people about where should we go and what is coming. We have feedbacks that we could never have if we were in a “stealth mode”.
Hey… no one will steal your idea when 99% of people never work on theirs!
by Daniel Haran
One argument I heard: If the idea is not incredibly original, and execution is likely to take a lot of time without being technically complex, and if time to market and building network effects is essential, then stealth is the right choice.
Most of the time, those startups are kidding themselves
by Marc Chriqui
Great post. Ask Loic Le Meur what he thinks about stealth mode.
by hugh
a good reason: you want to have your project working well before you release it to the public. that’s fair, isn’t it? eyeballs have little tolerance for clunky things these days, and the blogosphere is a harsh place for bad services.
so stealth mode gives you time to get your project working with a friendly bunch first, before launching publicly.
and it’s fair, isn’t it, to not tell everyone what you are doing before you do it?
by John
That sounds like a good reason Hugh – but I would regard that as a “closed beta”. By “stealth”, I am referring to the fact that you aren’t prepared to say what your working on – that’s a bit different to not showing what your working on.
by Mark Gilbert
The is good reason for Non-Disclosure Agreements concerning ideas. I have had experience of idea poaching on a few occasions in my many years as a consultant. It is an empirical fact that here are ideas that people have that are original/unique and are of of enough value in themselves that they require protection.
Please base your ideas on the observable rather than your theory of how things are.