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Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

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Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#21

Post by keiferski »

While execution > idea most of the time, I think it's become a little too accepted, for its own good. Ideas are worthless when they're another spin on a web 2.0 site, or rather a spin on something that already exists. From the link:

Oh, and what was the company? It was yet another Web 2.0 flavor of a question-and-answer, poll-your-friends site with a distant revenue model and no user acquisition strategy. Ran if for two years before we shut it down with almost no revenue achieved. Shocking, I know.

Going stealth is more worth it if your idea isn't in the same universe as ye old web 2.0 social network/web analysis/etc. tool. Hint: these aren't real businesses. This is especially true if your idea is simple to implement technically, but not necessarily simple to implement on a whole.

And the idea that "someone is already doing it" is far from a truth. There are plenty of HUGE problems that no one is working to solve - most likely because they aren't problems with technical solutions. The notion that "ideas are worthless" is really only valid if the idea isn't all that original in the first place.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#23

Post by keiferski »

markkat wrote: post #22

I now share my ideas openly. If I am not doing it at the moment, someone else is. If I am doing it, well, I want people to know about it.

If I am not doing it at the moment, someone else is.

You're assuming that # of people with an amazing idea = # of people with the tech skills/knowledge to make it happen.

Don't forget that the vast majority of businesspeople (very, very successful business people) are significantly less technically-inclined than a HN-reader.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#24

Post by slee029 »

I think when deciding the go stealth or not you should decide what you have more confidence in: you or your idea. In general be positive and have confidence in yourself and your team. You know that your first idea won't be your best idea. If you find there's no competition and you are all alone your idea probably doesn't work and you will find something better eventually. If you meet competition, you just validated the market anyways and grew the whole pie. At that point its about believing that your team can out execute the competition.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#25

Post by markkat »

keiferski wrote: post #23
markkat wrote: post #22

I now share my ideas openly. If I am not doing it at the moment, someone else is. If I am doing it, well, I want people to know about it.

If I am not doing it at the moment, someone else is. You're assuming that # of people with an amazing idea = # of people with the tech skills/knowledge to make it happen. Don't forget that the vast majority of businesspeople (very, very successful business people) are significantly less technically-inclined than a HN-reader.

And you're assuming my ideas are amazing. ;)

Point taken. But, I like to give one thing my full attention, so that goes into the decision too.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#26

Post by lwat »

NY_USA_Hacker wrote: post #17

Gee, it must be fun to call entrepreneurs silly. My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS. The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile. Details: So, at…

2.) Someone else has the exact same idea. Nonsense. Absolutely 100% total nonsense. I've published papers in the peer-reviewed research literature where the standard requirement is "new, correct, and significant". Note the "new". And I got a Ph.D. from a good research university, and there the main requirement was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". Note the "original".

We're talking about business ideas, not new research. Your new discoveries didn't grow up to be successful businesses. They're too young for that.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#27

Post by krschultz »

For three years I worked at Bug Labs (open source hardware company). We not only told everyone what we did, we posted the source code and the blueprints online. Nobody ever stole our ideas.

Think about that, people won't even steal your ideas if you give them the plans. It would make a lot of sense for someone else to just come along and build our hardware and sell our software without paying for 15 people doing development and engineering, but nobody did that.

Sure, we kept bits of information private like our negotiations with future partners or plans for the next version, but it really didn't matter that much.

Now I work in the defense industry. What we do on a daily basis is a thousand times more secret than your "stealth" startup and we can still talk about it in more general terms than most "stealth" entrepreneurs talk about their project.

So I call bullshit on the idea that anyone needs to keep a business idea stealthy, unless you are talking the nitty gritty details of the implementation's secret sauce, you will gain far more from sharing and making connections/partnerships than you will from secrecy.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#28

Post by Silhouette »

keiferski wrote: post #21

While execution > idea most of the time, I think it's become a little too accepted, for its own good. Ideas are worthless when they're another spin on a web 2.0 site, or rather a spin on something that already exists. From the link: Oh, and what was the company? It was yet another Web 2.0 flavor of a question-and-answer, poll-your-friends site with a distant revenue model and no user acquisition strategy. Ran if for…

I was thinking similar things all the way through the article.

We have a start-up in the works. The technical side is fairly easy, and many people could do it. Our value is built on the non-technical stuff, which relies on a network of people and resources that have taken years to develop. We've also done our homework, discreetly, so we really aren't worried about having to pivot dramatically on day one or about not being able to handle running costs for long enough to establish the product.

The biggest risk in our business plan is that we are relying to some extent on time over money, because we're self-funded. We know of no-one making a similar product to us, but there are businesses making other kinds of products that would naturally compete for the same money from the same customers, which makes us mutual threats. If one of them heard what we were planning, they could throw way more money than we currently have into moving sideways, and potentially sabotage our network before we reach critical mass, even if they didn't then establish an equivalent product themselves.

Given the nature of the markets involved, there is a very real prospect of that happening. If you were in our position, would you not keep things quiet until that window had passed?

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#29

Post by something »

Silhouette wrote: post #28
keiferski wrote: post #21

While execution > idea most of the time, I think it's become a little too accepted, for its own good. Ideas are worthless when they're another spin on a web 2.0 site, or rather a spin on something that already exists. From the link: Oh, and what was the company? It was yet another Web 2.0 flavor of a question-and-answer, poll-your-friends site with a distant revenue model and no user acquisition strategy. Ran if for…

I was thinking similar things all the way through the article. We have a start-up in the works. The technical side is fairly easy, and many people could do it. Our value is built on the non-technical stuff, which relies on a network of people and resources that have taken years to develop. We've also done our homework, discreetly, so we really aren't worried about having to pivot dramatically on day one or about not…

That question is impossible to answer. We don't know what you are trying to do. We can't know what your position actually is.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#30

Post by niyazpk »

I work for a 'stealth' startup.

The idea is just a very small part of the reason why we are in stealth. There are some other serious reasons why we don't want to go public right now. Unfortunately I can only talk about the stuff related to the idea itself.

Our idea is boring and not revolutionary. We already have some competitors in the vertical and while there is no point in trying to hide the actual idea, there are differences in the way we implement stuff that can get us an advantage over the competition.

    >> Execution is more important than the idea
I like this slogan as much as the next guy, but its implications may not be what you think they are. What if execution is (mostly) a function of money you have? What if someone with double the money we have can execute in half the time? What if they can copy your "execution" just because they can iterate faster since they have enough money in the bank?

    >> The most likely cause of failure is your incompetence,
       not losing to the competition.
But losing to competition is also a likely outcome. Isn't it?

    >> First mover advantage is just silliness
We've got a little funding from VCs. Some of our competitors are more than well funded. Investors are looking for proven entrepreneurs to enter this emerging market and they will get well funded too. There is a serious first mover advantage to be made especially when VCs are ready to drain money just to get the first mover advantage.

    >> You desperately need real feedback
This is orthogonal to going public with your idea.

Also, most people in our team are very good and have proven track records. If we are not in stealth mode, it will just draw unwanted attention. We don't want that at this point.

Again, as I said this is just part of the reasons why we are in stealth. Almost all of our competetors are public with the idea, and of course we don't know about any stealth competitors :)

This article assumes that all startups go into stealth mode just because of the fear of someone copying the idea. While this may be the case for many startups, this is not true at least in our case. [Our biggest reasons for being in stealth are people related. Sorry cannot expand on that]

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