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

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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".

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>As far as the bias on Hacker News is concerned, I think a lot of that stems from a couple of things:<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>One final point: most people who have the capability to build good apps would rather work on their own idea, not yours.

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.<p>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.

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?<p>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.

Ideas may be worthless, but information isn't.<p>Having an idea for a better mousetrap, as a trite example, isn't by itself worth much. It's only valuable if you can <i>build</i> the better mousetrap, build it at a profitable pricepoint, convince the world they <i>need</i> a better mousetrap, etc.<p>But if you're already in the mousetrap business, the information that a new competitor is planning to launch a better mousetrap <i>might</i> be very valuable information.

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

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.

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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.)".

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.<p>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.

<i>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?</i><p>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.

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.<p>Here is a fantastic essay on this very topic: <a href="http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/01/achieving-failure.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/01/achieving-failu...</a>

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

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

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.

Most people are too busy to stop whatever they are doing with their life and steal your idea.<p>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.

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

Ideas aren't worthless. They are a necessary but not sufficient condition for success.<p>The "ideas are worthless" meme is hyperbole and groupthink.

There are times when you have a great idea that actually isn't very difficult to execute but will provide huge value.<p>In those examples, it really isn't worth revealing your idea because someone else will execute before you.

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.

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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.

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.

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.<p>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.

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

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.<p>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."<p><a href="http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/first-mover-advantage-about-compound-interest-not-market-share.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.readwriteweb.com/start/2009/05/first-mover-advant...</a>

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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.

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.<p>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.

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.<p>It is not as important when you starting out.

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!

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.

Here's my 2 cents:<p>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.<p>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.

“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 <a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/don-t_worry_about_people_stealing_your_ideas-if/11068.html" rel="nofollow">http://thinkexist.com/quotation/don-t_worry_about_people_ste...</a>

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

because all ideas are worthless but some ideas are more worthless than others ;)<p>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.

Because implementing them isn't.

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

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

Because they haven't fully formulated their idea yet.

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

Answer: ideas aren't worthless.<p>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.<p>[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.]