Mark Geller

There seems to have been an increase recently in the discussion among entrepreneurs and others related to startups of whether and to what extent a startup should remain in “stealth” mode. For those who not familiar with the term, stealth mode refers to a startup explicitly not discussing in public its products or strategies.

The degree to which a company can cloak its intentions can range from simply not publicly demonstrating its product on one hand to using a false company name during development on the other, only to reveal the true name just before launching. A notable example of the latter was WebTV, whose name alone would have revealed their intentions, and who went by the title Artemis Research, complete with an image of the Greek goddess Artemis on the door, for a year before they launched.

Many investors note first-time entrepreneurs are often too closed-lipped about their ideas, asking VCs to sign NDAs (in the process revealing their own naivete) and generally being too uptight about sharing their company story with potential partners who could help the business. My take on this is every situation is different and the founders should employ whatever level of stealth suits the particular company and timing. For example, in the case of WebTV, the fact Microsoft did not know the company was developing this technology enabled “Artemis” to build a sizable technology lead, which essentially required Microsoft to buy the company as a defensive move before their model was tested by the market. This netted the founders and investors $425 million… for a product that ultimately failed. So, the strategy worked fairly well in this case.

However, today a startup called Zyxio announced their new technology, a platform to enable users to control a computer’s (or any product’s) operating system by blowing on an input device–you could think of it as the iPhone app Ocarina for controlling your stuff, for example, when your hands are full (e.g., driving) or for those with physical limitations. Rather than stay in stealth mode and try to decide which of the hundreds of possible applications they should build first using the technology, the founders of Zyxio decided to announce the technology before they had a killer app and instead use crowd-sourcing to suggest and vote on different product ideas. They have created a site called BeAMindBlower.com, where users can do exactly that, with the winners “joining the advisory board” of Zyxio.

This is a case where the company can clearly benefit more by publicizing the technology now even before the application is finalized than they could by waiting. The technology itself is a great idea and the idea and the execution to publicize it are fantastic. Kudos to Zyxio for going anti-stealth and best of luck with your pre-launch launch.