Gust

OCTOBER 7, 2012

Every time I hear about a new startup that is in stealth mode, I wonder what problem they are hiding from whom. I believe stealth makes sense for large companies who can be sued for “pre-announcing” a new product to stall the market or kill a competitor. “No With stealth mode, you can’t learn early enough to pivot gracefully.

Stealth 131

Stealth Entrepreneur Incubator Engineer 131

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 7, 2013

He then pointed out that for service-based businesses every slot that went unfilled the provider had very high fixed costs and very low marginal costs and people ought to be willing to sell low-demand or last-minute expiring times at a discount while selling premium times at full price or even a surge price. So there you have it.

Southern California 359

Southern California San Francisco CTO Hire SEM 359

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 5, 2023

The advantages are many, including avoiding all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding and managing external investors, allowing you to retain full control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. But operating in stealth mode, or waiting for that perfect investor to find you, or feeling entitled, is even less effective.

Angel Investor 246

Angel Investor Stealth Bootstrapping Early Stage 246

Cracking the Code

MARCH 29, 2022

With the elite initial team they’ve assembled, they’ve managed to build their first product in record time and secure large six-figure deals while still in stealth mode.

Cloud 62

Cloud Cofounder Architecture Technical Cofounder 62

Startup Professionals Musings

AUGUST 21, 2014

It’s popular these days for startup founders to operate in stealth mode, meaning no details about the idea or progress are shared with anyone until the big reveal and rollout. In my view, this paranoid approach costs them much more than the risk of being open. Being open is the new business culture around the world.

Stealth 252

Stealth Startup Early Stage Social Media 252

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 22, 2020

The advantages are many, including avoiding all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding and managing external investors, allowing you to retain full control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. But operating in stealth mode, or waiting for that perfect investor to find you, or feeling entitled, is even less effective.

Stealth 434

Stealth Startup Angel Investor Bootstrapping 434

BeyondVC

JANUARY 3, 2019

First check leads in 5 founding teams, all in stealth. congrats to Fortress IQ on its $12mm Series A led by Lightspeed and a stealth co on their $13.5mm Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Smallstep , Clay , Dark , and Windmill emerged out of stealth. First check to Series B?—?congrats First check to Series A?—?congrats

Stealth 79

Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

Steve Blank

MAY 30, 2016

And they’re getting a handle on what it costs to build a company to deliver it. But a decade earlier as undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, he was the father of the second offset strategy using software and semiconductors to build smart weapons, smart sensors, and stealth aircraft that helped end the Cold War.

Silicon Valley 120

Silicon Valley San Diego Technical Review Incubator 120

Startup Professionals Musings

DECEMBER 13, 2021

Aspiring entrepreneurs who are determined to operate in stealth mode, for fear of giving away their secrets, will find they lose more than they could gain by sharing. It’s amazing how much you can learn from people who have been there, and love to talk about their successes as well as their failures.

Entrepreneur 339

Entrepreneur Stealth Social Network Business Plan 339

Startup Professionals Musings

NOVEMBER 27, 2015

Startups which insist on operating in stealth mode in fear of competitor response miss the more important customer response. They are so certain that customers are poised and waiting that they forget the costs of a hard launch -- and the risks of a highly visible failure. Proceed with caution.

Hockey Stick 120

Hockey Stick Startup Stealth Agile 120

Startup Professionals Musings

APRIL 13, 2016

It’s still popular these days for startup founders to operate in stealth mode, meaning no details about the idea or progress are shared with anyone until the big reveal and rollout. In my view, this paranoid approach costs them much more than the risk of being open. Being open is the new business culture around the world.

Stealth 120

Stealth Startup Early Stage Social Media 120

Version One Ventures

NOVEMBER 9, 2021

In many cases, the monthly savings is greater than the monthly cost. . EnPowered closed their initial seed round in February 2020 and have been developing their platform in stealth mode over the past year. The customers pay for their energy project on their existing utility bills using savings from the project.

Stealth 148

Stealth Vertical Portfolio Finance 148

Hearpreneur

JANUARY 2, 2022

I'm proud of the fact that we've managed to bring down costs and managed to solve many of the problems we initially had. So, I've never conveyed mixed cost signals like that to our staff. Thanks to Teo Vanyo, Stealth Agents ! #20- I'm really proud of the growth of my company and what we've been able to do.

Entrepreneur 123

Entrepreneur Jordan Employee Revenue 123

Sophia Perl of Wisdom

AUGUST 11, 2010

I always go back and forth about whether stealth mode is good or bad. I guess that I should back up and explain what I mean by stealth. When someone has a business idea, she may choose not to disclose what the idea is about aka stealth mode. Back to the idea of stealth mode. It’s nothing personal.

Stealth 51

Stealth IP Angel Investor Engineer 51

Startup Professionals Musings

JUNE 28, 2017

Find corporate sponsors to reduce startup costs. You learn more by talking to people early, versus stealth mode. Stealth mode entrepreneurs won’t tell people about their idea early, or ask for feedback, for fear of the idea being stolen or copied. Others can be very stubborn and charge blindly ahead.

Stealth 202

Stealth Angel Investor Entrepreneur Revenue 202

Startup Lessons Learned

AUGUST 31, 2015

She shares: “We now use metrics like cost-per-learning and validation velocity to show progress since traditional things like ROI weren’t applicable.” The United States Digital Service, a federal government agency, is building a ‘stealth startup.’

Lean 60

Lean United States Fractional CTO Startup 60

ReadWriteStart

APRIL 5, 2011

In my last post on ReadWriteStart, I talked about how, in many cases, it wasn't an advantage to build your start-up in stealth mode. Another simple and relatively low cost way to get feedback from a critical mass of potential users is to use Ask Your Target Market.

Software Review 130

Software Review Stealth Video Channel 130

Steve Blank

APRIL 6, 2009

It involved building stealth aircraft to deliver these precision weapons unseen by any enemy radar, and designing intelligence and reconnaissance systems that would target for them. Smart weapons, smart sensors, and stealth. F-117 Nighthawk - 1st Stealth Ground Attack Plane These changes in American defense policy spooked the Soviets.

Silicon Valley 171

Silicon Valley Stealth RSS California 171

Hearpreneur

APRIL 13, 2022

Unpakt is the first company in the industry that allows users to compare movers and costs in real-time before booking their move online. Thanks to Teo Vanyo, Stealth Agents ! #21- Unpakt, one of my favorite disruptors, is causing waves in the moving sector, which had never been successfully disrupted before Unpakt. 21- AMP Robotics.

Artificial Inteligence 78

Artificial Inteligence Entrepreneur Technical Review Software Review 78

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

Ideally each portfolio company would also report their own data to the data-trackers (except when they’re in stealth), but not all of them are diligent. – A database of accurate costs for financial models: salary, rent, IT, etc. HOF has to do this manually today with regard to our own investments into each company.

Portfolio 60

Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

VC Cafe

APRIL 28, 2021

The platform provides the tools and in most cases the audience, but that of course, comes at a cost. We’ve made several investments in the space (some are still in stealth). Platform take rates = tax. Most creators build their audiences on Platforms etc.

Audio 167

Audio Valuation Stealth B2C 167

BeyondVC

JANUARY 6, 2018

We were first check leads in 8 founding teams including Wallaroo Labs , MState (fka hyperfab ), blockdaemon , and 5 in stealth. Corporate America is pressured to decrease costs and improve customer interactions and every Fortune 500 is a technology company. 2 exits including yhat (sold to Alteryx?

Cloud 60

Cloud Cofounder Portfolio Advisory Board 60

ReadWriteStart

MAY 29, 2012

SS: You have to be strategic because there’s no stealth mode. For the cost of a latte, people could buy into a historic movement. RWW: How do you know whether crowdfunding is a better approach for your startup than seeking traditional forms of financing? The pitch was, “Adventure games are not dead.

Campaign 142

Campaign Stealth Social Media Audience 142

Austin Startup

DECEMBER 16, 2018

It is disruptive to your culture and your performance (think about the opportunity cost alone). This was exceptionally hard for a candidate to prepare for in the early days because our company was in stealth-mode, as I wrote about in this post. Opportunity cost is a real cost, and time is money in a startup’s life.

Part-Time VPE 48

Part-Time VPE CTO Hire Hiring Austin 48

Startup Professionals Musings

OCTOBER 13, 2017

Traditionally, businesses have yearned for consistency, as a lever tor productivity and cutting costs. In the past, companies avoided sharing knowledge or technology, preferring stealth mode and relying on internal expertise to stay safe. Enable customers to customize your offerings, and learn from the choices they make.

Malaysia 151

Malaysia Stealth United States Social Media 151

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2017

The fact that guerrilla marketing is low-cost doesn’t go at the expense of its quality. Also known as stealth marketing, this clever tactic advertises a product in such a sneaky manner that people aren’t even aware that they’re being subjected to advertising. by Nate Vickery, editor-in-chief of Bizzmarkblog.com. Undercover marketing.

Flash 162

Flash Marketing Stealth Social Media 162

Startup Lessons Learned

JULY 3, 2009

bigs : @ericries says Stealth dev is a (undesirable, failure-presaging) customer-free zone. LeanStartup Of course, a big enabler of those kinds of mistakes is stealth-mode. Another recent meme that I hope more and more startups will take to heart: "stealth is a customer-free zone." Danger, Will Robinson.

Lean 60

Lean San Francisco Continuous Deployment Cofounder 60

YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 31, 2016

by Brent Freeman , co-founder and president of Stealth Venture Labs. Had we continued hiring new customer service representatives instead of dealing with the root cause, our personnel costs would have sunk the company. Despite what many entrepreneurs may think, know this: Not all growth is good growth.

Los Angeles 100

Los Angeles Stealth San Francisco Cofounder 100

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

Webinars have a whole other cost in terms of time, effort, headaches, etc. Some startups are in stealth mode and maybe branding and beautiful design is important. So we started doing both webinars and ebooks, then ultimately did more ebooks than webinars because they performed better.

Marketing 120

Marketing Sales Cycle Startup CTO Hire 120

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

AwesomeBox : AwesomeBox is currently in stealth mode so I’ll respect that. On average the platform is generating 30+% increase in conversions and 15% decrease in cost per lead. Gyroscope is in double-dog secret stealth mode right now so I’ll focus more on the entrepreneur. We’re excited to work with them.

Los Angeles 276

Los Angeles Stealth Securities and Exchange Commission Southern California 276

YoungUpstarts

MAY 13, 2013

Their funding goal stands at $12,000, which helps to offset the costs of printing and shipping. He has a love for stealth and RPGs but is willing to try almost anything. When fan interest popped up on Facebook, the team began updating it “with more images and proper descriptions.” Cue Kickstarter.

Singapore 133

Singapore Video Stealth Australia 133

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 6, 2011

Measure of success: more than doubling our customer base without doubling our cost per acquisition. Measure of success: 360 degree reviews done smartly (meaning efficiently and not dreaded by all involved). Marketing who we are, not who we may want to be one day. Measure of success: sales growth and gross margin return on investment.

Stealth 60

Stealth Startup Lean Cofounder 60

Startup Professionals Musings

MAY 13, 2016

The advantages are many, including avoiding all the cost, pain, and distractions of finding and managing external investors, allowing you to retain full control and all your hard-earned equity for yourself. But operating in stealth mode, or waiting for that perfect investor to find you, or feeling entitled, is even less effective.

Stealth 120

Stealth Startup Angel Investor Bootstrapping 120

www.reincubate.com

FEBRUARY 1, 2010

Contribute to development of primary business plan, with input on focus, costing and approach (platform, build vs. buy, resourcing, hosting strategy, time & cost). Where necessary, produce cost-benefit and risk justifications for IT initiatives to win budgetary support from the board.

Fractional CTO 40

Fractional CTO CTO Technical Review CTO Hire 40

Startup Lessons Learned

NOVEMBER 7, 2008

We had endless arguments internally about what features it should include, how the avatars should look, and how much it should cost. Just load them all in and choose a low cost-per-click. Seems like a fairly low-cost method of gauging customer interest for a would-be product. We finally settled on a $1.99 I used to use $.05,

Demand 167

Demand San Francisco Lean Continuous Deployment 167

Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

By now we all know that the largest part of the online spend has been SEM (search engine marketing) where people buy CPC (cost per click) links to display alongside the “organic&# search results in the search engine. They are detail oriented, cost focused, quality obsessed and chasing a big market opportunity.

Advertising 284

Advertising Las Vegas Affiliate RSS 284

Up and Running

MARCH 29, 2018

Think through what you’ll do if something takes much longer than expected, or if costs end up being much more than you initially anticipated. Attached to your list of milestones and deliverables should be information about the project cost and estimated budget. Identify risks. Determine the risks involved in your project.

Framework 136

Framework Stealth Conversion Software 136