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Ask HN: The Fog of Secrecy

7 points by joshuarr ↗ HN
I am the founder of a self-funded startup. We launched a private alpha site roughly three weeks ago, and have about a hundred accounts. We are about to start making appointments with VCs and we have a thorough business plan and presentation ready, but I don't feel like it is the right time to dispel the fog. The fog keeps us safe, but also keeps us in the dark.

I'm not looking for specific advise as much as I am interested in thoughts from more experienced founders about when an idea needs to see the light, and when it is in one's best interest to maintain the secrecy. Clearly we cant market and try to grow in the dark, but we also can't attract execs and developers either.

How do you decide when to blow cover?

4 comments

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suhail
I've read from others and experienced personally that being more open about your startup is more useful. By being out there, you have the opportunity to be first, make current/potential competition re-evaluate their business, and building a loyalty and user-base takes time so get started fast. Merely, being out there, you might have opportunities come after you instead of what you're doing now (i.e. seeking them).
dpifke
One of the VCs at a panel I attended in the last year or so said, "if your business plan depends on noone knowing you exist, you have a problem."

In all seriousness, the execution is way more important than the idea, and execution is a lot harder to copy than ideas are. If you're at the stage where you have a working product, you're probably at the stage where you can go public with your idea.

icey
If you think that someone can steal your idea and do it better than you can, it should tell you something.

(In other words, the ideas are almost never as valuable as the execution.)

mojombo
There are two kinds of startup ideas: those that have basically already been done, and those that nobody else thinks can or should be done. In either case, maintaining secrecy is only detrimental. If you believe in your team and your idea, let the world know as soon as you have something usable so they can tell you what they like and don't like about your product. That's how you'll end up making a kickass offering.