Ask HN: If ideas are worthless, why are some startups in stealth mode?
If that's the case, why are some startups in stealth mode? If they have a great team that can execute, why should they care if anyone else knows what they are working on? If something is worthless, I shouldn't mind giving it to someone else. If I do mind someone else sharing what I have, it means I place some value on it.
Are some startups correct in wanting to be in stealth mode, or is it always a stupid idea?
If it makes sense that some startups should be in stealth mode, doesn't that imply that the knowledge of what they are working on has some value, which would mean that ideas sometimes do have value?
Maybe I'm missing something, either in what people mean by "ideas are worthless, execution is the only thing that counts", or in what people mean when they say that a startup is in stealth mode, or something else.
What do you guys think?
92 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadOn 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.
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.
But only after you've tried to execute them (and failed) will you discover that its not as easy as you think, and that your million dollar ideas were garbage.
Going to your grave with a pocketful of possibilities is not only a disservice to yourself, but also pretty selfish.
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.
Our company is in "stealth mode". We were funded in April, but we would prefer to have our one-time 15 minutes of fame in October, so we'll be waiting until then to "exit stealth mode".
It's a PR hack, essentially.
Here is a fantastic essay on this very topic: http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2009/01/achieving-failu...
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.
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.
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.
As far as the bias on Hacker News is concerned, I think a lot of that stems from a couple of things:
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.
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.
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.
One final point: most people who have the capability to build good apps would rather work on their own idea, not yours.
So, are you effectively saying that the answer to the opening question is that startups in stealth mode aren't really protecting ideas, but are protecting the plan of attack, the strategy, market research, design concepts, historical data, etc?
This could be true, but do startups which are not in stealth mode really divulge all that info (plan of attack, strategy, market research, etc) to the public? It seems that the difference between stealth mode and non-stealth mode is simply in telling the public what you are working on. This is the knowledge that is deemed, by stealth startups, valuable enough to keep secret, i.e. the knowledge of what they are working on.
That's pretty shallow don't you think?
Where "what you are working on" is presented in broad, nebulous terms ("ebay for dogs", or "online video editing").
The previous post mentions Google as an example of execution over ideas, but the idea for Google was not "search engine", but "search engine that uses the following algorithm ..." And there was good reason to keep details secret.
Design concepts are ideas. Plans of attack are ideas. There are lots of ideas based on specific data and current opportunities, and these are the ones people keep quiet about.
When people say ideas are worthless, they mostly seem to be referring to worthless ideas (e.g. "ebay for dogs", which is more of an idea for an idea ), not the ideas behind a tangible implementation or the ideas for successful marketing.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.)".
So sometimes stealth mode is a good idea in order to make yourself get developing, rather than in order to keep the idea itself from the outside world.
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.
[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.]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_State_Quarters
"The idea of a circulating commemorative has been around the hobby for decades, but frankly, good ideas are a dime a dozen. Far more rare is the ability to move an idea to reality,"
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.
It is not as important when you starting out.
Having an idea for a better mousetrap, as a trite example, isn't by itself worth much. It's only valuable if you can build the better mousetrap, build it at a profitable pricepoint, convince the world they need a better mousetrap, etc.
But if you're already in the mousetrap business, the information that a new competitor is planning to launch a better mousetrap might be very valuable information.
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.