Startup Professionals Musings

FEBRUARY 13, 2021

Major innovation, with major payback, requires real change, addresses a major pain point, and hits a large customer segment who can pay. You may be a product expert, but have little experience with running a business, or marketing, or sales. For example, smart entrepreneurs look for recognizable patterns in disconnected domains.

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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

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Stealth Advisory Board Cloud Virginia 79

ConversionXL

FEBRUARY 19, 2020

At a tactical level, companies can improve their customer segmentation and personalize marketing and sales experiences. IKEA now has a home solar offering that enables customers to generate their own renewable energy; it also shifted to renewable plastics and offers sustainable, healthy food in its restaurants. Image source ).

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VC Cafe

JANUARY 24, 2021

Disclaimer: we have three portfolio companies in the consumer mobile space, still in stealth). As part of this, Vogue says we will see more influencers turning into retailers – either by selling their own merch or driving sales for brands. This may also trickle down to Google and Amazon. credit App Annie. social media.

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Technical Review Audio Forecast Social Media 207

ReadWriteStart

MARCH 28, 2011

They explained they were building it "stealth". Interestingly, very active angel and COO at Square , Keith Rabois weighted in on Quora in response to the question: "What are some concrete reasons for *actively* stealthing a startup?" Saying you are a "stealth" company with no details certainly doesn't leave much to go on.

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Stealth Deal Flow Reputation Lean 126

Version One Ventures

MAY 17, 2022

We’re very excited to announce our investment in Inflection.io , as the company comes out of stealth with a $5M seed round. In years past, the B2B customer experience and buying process were owned by sales. Inflection is the only marketing automation solution purpose built for B2B product-led companies.

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B2B Product Stealth Marketing 105

View from Seed

MARCH 3, 2015

But even with that webinar’s success, we still had a lot of education to do in order to get people to understand what we did and even how we saw marketing in general, which we needed to do to generate demand and sales. But marketing should always be ahead of sales to alleviate pressure. I’m at Toast now and see something similar.

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BeyondVC

JANUARY 5, 2022

And our portfolio continued to grow: Day one lead/co-lead in 14 founding teams: (most still in stealth) representing , , , , , , Continued investments in developer first, SaaS, and crypto infrastructure companies. Day one to exi t: Huge congrats to FortressIQ on its sale to Automation Anywhere. What’s in Enterprise 2022.

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JANUARY 9, 2014

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle framework “People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it” Simon Sinek If your customers believe in your mission, then they’ll warm to you and listen to what you offer and how. Happy customers tend to spend more, more often and tell their friends. This is where the Golden Circle comes in.

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genuinevc.com

SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

Stealth Mode. I’ve recently been introduced to a number of startups that are operating in “stealth mode,” and have been thinking about what to make of this fact. In a post yesterday, Keith Robinson clearly articulated one of my conclusions, “I’ve heard quite a bit about start-ups and “stealth mode.” October 13, 2005 |.

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cdixon.org

SEPTEMBER 17, 2011

You’ll refine your sales and investor pitch. Great tips, fully inline with “Four Steps to the Epiphany” Also reminds me of Dharmesh’s “Stealth Mode, Schmealth Mode” — [link]. link] The Stealth Mode: Trada’s Position on Staying Stealth | Trada Blog. [.] Share: [link] Jerry Ji.

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YoungUpstarts

JUNE 1, 2018

This is of course assuming you are prepared to go out of ‘stealth mode’ – don’t laugh. Depending on the complexity of the idea, most entrepreneurs will do some sort of research that will include meeting with people who are either in the field, potential customers, partners etc. Customer Development.

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ReadWriteStart

MAY 29, 2012

SS: You have to be strategic because there’s no stealth mode. It comes down to a sales pitch. These people are engaged customers and your most ardent supporters and brand evangelists. RWW: How do you know whether crowdfunding is a better approach for your startup than seeking traditional forms of financing?

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Steve Blank

JUNE 15, 2011

Dr Jean-Paul Rodrigue , in the Department of Global Studies & Geography at Hofstra University, observed that bubbles have four phases; stealth, awareness, mania and blow-off. In the stealth phase , prescient angel investors and Venture Capitalists (VCs) start investing in an industry or market segment that others have not yet found.

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Silicon Valley Stealth Valuation Mississippi 328

This is going to be BIG.

DECEMBER 24, 2018

If enterprise sales is the hard part of what you’re doing, figure out how you can de-risk that first—maybe by trying to pitch some vaporware to buyers or perhaps getting them to pay you to build it on a consulting basis. Second, I’m working on a new stealth project that enables founders to get feedback from investors in a fast and easy way.

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Stealth Naming Hosting Founder 143

David Teten

JULY 25, 2017

O perations – We work closely with a pool of preferred service providers who address the operational challenges of early-stage companies: accounting, financial modeling, sales acceleration, legal and regulatory needs, insurance, real estate, engineering, and community building. This is roughly comparable to PRNewswire’s distribution service.

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Portfolio Technical Review Private Equity Database 60

Both Sides of the Table

APRIL 17, 2010

We’ll be conducting a series of educational programes covering: fund raising, team building, product development, sales, marketing, business development and how to prioritize your time as a CEO. AwesomeBox : AwesomeBox is currently in stealth mode so I’ll respect that. And of course we had, TheMan. Watch this space.

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Los Angeles Stealth Securities and Exchange Commission Southern California 276

Startup Lessons Learned

JANUARY 14, 2015

Their teams may disagree about what a product should look like, who the customer is, and which distributors to work with, but one thing they can all agree upon is: “We build high-quality products in this company. How can we make it clear that our goal is nothing less than delighting the customer?

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YoungUpstarts

OCTOBER 16, 2017

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. Stats say that freebies can boost sales by as much as 2,000%, and this percentage makes all your investments worthwhile. Undercover marketing.

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Flash Marketing Stealth Social Media 162

Lightspeed Venture Partners

JANUARY 6, 2011

Measure of success: more than doubling our customer base without doubling our cost per acquisition. Measure of success: sales growth and gross margin return on investment. Marketing who we are, not who we may want to be one day.

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BeyondVC

DECEMBER 29, 2016

Before diving into the standard year-end predictions on the enterprise, I thought I would share some data on our firm and our founding teams from 2016: we welcomed 9 new enterprise founding teams to the portfolio including Workrails (started by venture partner Jeff Leventhal), BigID , Hypr , Init.ai , and 5 stealth companies. SaaS 3.0 ?—?many

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David Teten

SEPTEMBER 6, 2015

Mari is now building a new venture in human-machine interaction within the Samsung accelerator, currently in stealth mode. Access to the corporate investor’s ecosystem can open up great opportunities from technology validation to customer and partner development. Mari has been a serial intrapreneur for a large part of her career.

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Both Sides of the Table

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

further down the sales funnel from CPC advertising where you pay for a click but still need to convert on your own). Think of the Amazon affiliate program where you’re paid if you help Amazon sell books (I think on average Amazon pays about 7% of sales). But higher value product sales often require a phone call.

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adamac.blogspot.com

MARCH 9, 2010

Startups require resourcefulness and a rolodex of enterprise customers isnt enough. Stealth-mode" is generally unecessary and more likely harmful to your startup (and calling it stealth-mode calls you out as a noob). Well, its not a joke. If its your company, bear this strongly in mind. Unfortunately this usually backfires.

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Technical Review CTO Hire Fractional CTO Startup 41

BeyondVC

FEBRUARY 12, 2014

Since most of our companies have a product that is in alpha stage (super early, buggy), we like to help our entrepreneurs get more market data and customer feedback through our relationships to help them further refine their product. This is yet another example of the consumerization of tech.

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K9 Ventures

MAY 27, 2011

In fact, most founders tend to take it to the other extreme that they don’t want to share their idea (subject of another future blog post on why Stealth is Overrated). That little theme is what lead to the creation of iMeet for live web conferencing, iServe for live pre-sales customer service on the web.

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Equity Cofounder Silicon Valley Stealth 133

VC Cafe

FEBRUARY 15, 2017

The company emerged from stealth in November 2016 and announced a $100 million investment round from Sir Ronald Cohen, Lloyd Dorfman, OCAPAC Holding Company, and Horizons Ventures. Chorus.ai (2015) – Chorus uses AI to analyze sales calls by joining the conference calls, transcribing the data and extracting important action items.

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Artificial Inteligence Technical Review Startup 122

Hearpreneur

NOVEMBER 19, 2021

You learn how to appear to be devoted to new products without actually committing financially until you receive feedback and orders from your customers. With the strike of the pandemic, our leads and sales accelerate ten times fold the pre-COVID. Thanks to Teo Vanyo, Stealth Agents ! #18- 12- Promote brands in the new normal.

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Entrepreneur Software Review LLC Web Development 147

Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 17, 2021

You have to say, “Well, why is it that all of this massive amount of investment, position, customers, retail position, capital, talent, and all the rest, is all oriented in this direction?” Existing businesses have a bunch of customers who demand certain things, demand an SLA, don’t want to take certain risks as a way of doing it.

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Reid Hoffman

AUGUST 17, 2021

You have to say, “Well, why is it that all of this massive amount of investment, position, customers, retail position, capital, talent, and all the rest, is all oriented in this direction?” Existing businesses have a bunch of customers who demand certain things, demand an SLA, don’t want to take certain risks as a way of doing it.

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Cofounder Differentiation Search Advertising 69

crowdSPRING Blog

APRIL 21, 2010

Creating Urgency in Your Sales Copy – [link]. Are there benefits for a startup to work in “stealth&# mode? 3 resources for bonding with your customers: tools of mass engagement! How To Respond If A Customer Thinks You Run The Bunny Ranch – [link]. micah says not for all – [link]. – [link].

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Social Media Small Business Design Media 93

VC Cafe

NOVEMBER 8, 2011

They have been in stealth mode for 2 years now working mainly with network infrastructures and content providers. If Netflix can save money by using Qwilt, hopefully they can bring their prices back down, and bring back 800,000 lost customers. They plan to go for the mobile carriers as well.

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Scalable Startup

FEBRUARY 1, 2013

So originally the customer was the Department of Defense. It was the first customer for the computer. Marc Andreessen: We have a bunch of stealth investments. I mean, this is a big, big thing — big change for us, so we have a bunch of stealth investments — I mean, companies that haven’t talked about what they are doing yet.

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Software Review Startup Venture Capital Stock 22

www.metamorphblog.com

OCTOBER 23, 2010

“Stealth Mode&# = FAIL. Customers are technophobes. the frustrated wannabe founder with 3 kids and a mortgage) inside of a big organization and they’ll become your champion, guiding you through the sales process and giving you lots of actionable intel. After the month or so is over, then sit down and talk equity.

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Founder Startup Cofounder Vesting 51

VC Cafe

JULY 9, 2010

Legolas Media – Currently in stealth mode, The Legolas Media team is focused on innovating digital display media. Cellcom partnered with Citi Bank to offer its customers a mobile payments solution and money transferring, to be launched by the end of 2010. See the Soho OS video demo below.

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Media Stealth Venture Capital 109

Up and Running

JULY 14, 2015

I’d implemented a business plan including marketing, engagement, sales strategy and realized a few months in that it wasn’t servicing a key influence or in the sales process. The customer validation phase is critical for that kind of thing. Caroline: Number five is not talking to customers. Jonathan: Sure.

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mashable.com

NOVEMBER 3, 2010

Craig is currently the CEO and founder of stealth-ish startup BetterWorks. Serbinski has since gone on to invest in a handful of stealth startups in the gaming, mobile and location arenas. . A well-funded startup with no product is still behind a startup with no money but a product and customers.&#

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