“Worrying is destructive. Worrying slows you down. Worrying makes it harder for you to achieve any attainable goals.” -an unnamed fellow entrepreneur
Recently, an enthusiastic entrepreneur approached me at a networking event to mention that’s he’s working on a “tremendous” new start-up. He was hoping that I might have a few relevant connections to offer.
Awesome.
Excited to hear about his deal, I pushed for the details. Unfortunately, he informed me that he cannot disclose anything in too much detail because his start-up is still in stealth mode. In fact, if I really would like to know more, he notified me that he’d be open to grabbing coffee the following week, at which time I could sign a non-disclosure agreement.
I smiled politely, wished him the best of luck, and moved on to a different conversation.
Pulling simply from the nature of our discussion that day, it’s possible I will never know just how tremendous his idea is. Mr. Stealth Mode’s unwillingness to establish an open dialogue is just one more reason why his idea may never turn into anything of real value.
It seems like nearly every first-time entrepreneur is obsessed with the concept of stealth mode. This turns out be a stage that most entrepreneurs would rather forget; one defined by too much theory, too much wasted time, and not enough tangible progress.
So, ditch your stealth mode. Here’s why.
Top 5 reasons why stealth mode is worthless:
- Your initial idea probably sucks. You’re assuming a lot by believing others will actually steal it. As entrepreneurs we like to think that we can solve almost any problem in the world. Well, it turns out most others don’t think quite as highly of our brain diarrhea as we do; and that’s for good reason: most ideas suck. The only way to figure out whether or not an idea has any real merit is to actually start getting feedback from someone besides your mom.
- You have more problems to worry about than whether or not someone will steal your idea. The chances of failure from something other than a stolen idea are high. There are countless reasons why you’re going to fail: your timing is going to be off; you’re going to build the wrong product; you’re not going to raise enough capital or generate adequate revenue to keep the lights on; you’re not going to assemble the right core team; you’re going to lose motivation; etc. (see Eric Karjaluoto’s post on “Why your web startup with fail”).
- You’re going to turn people off and therefore miss out on great networking and investment opportunities. Investors won’t sign NDAs (VC, Brad Feld explains why here). Most experienced entrepreneurs won’t either. Building a strong network is critical to your success and being in stealth mode only inhibits your ability to build out your network. Bottom line, don’t give influencers in your market a reason to avoid learning and talking about your startup.
- You’ll miss out on valuable feedback. Feedback from customers, entrepreneurs, investors, etc. will make your product and company exponentially better. Similar to point #3, putting up barriers to constructive feedback only worsens your odds of success.
- You’ll waste valuable resources simply protecting an idea. Time is money. If you’re worrying about protecting your idea, then you’re not 1oo% focused on actually proving out your idea. Ideas alone don’t result in liquidity events. The quicker you validate your concept, the better.
Whoa, we’re actually building value!
When we finally began an open dialogue about efforts, we realized we were forced to focus 100% of our energy on learning, iterating, and building actual value. At this very point of open communication real progress began occurring. Notably, others began offering meaningful introductions, customers started telling us what they wanted, and our product began taking meaningful shape.
So if you’re working on a deal in stealth mode, do yourself a favor and purge that toxic philosophy from your vocabulary.
