Stealth mode and other brilliant strategies

<i>Steve Jobs didn’t work constantly, Bill Gates had lots of hobbies, Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t tethered to his laptop, and Tim Ferris really did become a best-seller by writing and then promoting his book only 4 hours a week.</i><p>Yeah, but Steve Jobs was kind of a legendary asshole who broke his relationships with his friends and loved ones into tiny little pieces, and Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are both talked about by their contemporaries as if they were aliens who'd been deposited on Earth by a wayward space Greyhound.<p>Is there no way to lead people to success without asking them to check their humanity at the door?<p><i>Startups don’t require obsession — that’s an unhealthy rumor perpetrated by all 300 startup founders ever interviewed on Mixergy. They’re all lying — they actually lead healthy, balanced lives. They don’t want you to know their secret, because this keeps potential competition at bay.</i><p>Or the startup founders interviewed on Mixergy know that startup culture is macho and youth-oriented, so they tell tales of epic all-night code sprees and laser focus on the business in order to burnish their image as True Startup Heroes among their peers.<p>I'm not saying that you shouldn't work hard at your business. It just annoys me to see examples like these held up as the One True Way To Success. Some startup founders who cut everything out of their lives but The Work will succeed, but most will fail, because most startup founders <i>of all types</i> fail. Even the Jack Dorsey-style "of course I can work three shifts a day without any negative consequences" <i>übermenschen</i>. And the ones that fail will not only not have a business, they also won't have a life as well, because they threw it away in pursuit of the dream.

I thought it was hilarious. Especially the bit about not talking to anybody about your product, they will know soon enough how great it is :-)<p>Of course the interesting question is whether or not the sarcasm comes through. Sadly I suspect there are people out there reading the blog and saying "Yeah, this guy really gets it!" In a way this totally screws that up because it might actually reinforce the wrong beliefs.

This is horrible advice...<p>A startup will for the most part only be successful if...<p>1) You work 20 hours a day 7 days a week (give or take - the less sleep the better)<p>2) Release a product immediately (who cares if you end up pissing off early adopters - they'll see it through and be your biggest champions)<p>3) Ask people if they will pay for your imaginary product (if they tell you it looks great - its a guarantee they'll go right home and sign up for the monthly plan)

Can anyone think of an exception to the stealth mode rule? A company that was actually a big success, but spent the first few months intentionally under wraps? I think in general stealth mode isn't a good strategy, but there must be exceptions to the rule -- I just can't think of any right now.

I think you could easily tack on "Read more advice rather than execute and try to apply advice." Anecdotally, just about every combination of characteristics has survived / succeeded at least once. This leads to a wide range of maxims being spouted about startups. But, none of it is "worth much" until applied and put into action.

Sometimes we just need to hear the opposite to do the right thing. :-)

Let's try to avoid at least half the unnecessary comments on this article:<p><a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+sarcasm" rel="nofollow">http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+sarcasm</a>

I'm really glad that everything posted on the internet is both truthful, and also good advice. Life without critical thinking is much easier.

I almost didn't realize this was sarcasm :)

Sarcasm was great for the first 100 articles I've read, but that was years ago.

What kind of sold off the sarcasm for me was this sentence: " Once you launch, then millions of people will know about you, including competitors," yea, right, they all wait in line, just one techcrunch article / hacker news front page and the millions will flow. So being that obviously sarcastic, if someone reads it and doesn't get the sarcasm and follows the "suggestions", then, well, I guess, no harm done and they just deserve it.