Almost 10% of the people who viewed my LinkedIn profile in the last 30 days work at a “Stealth Startup” 👻.
Coincidence? 🤔
I don’t think so! A month ago, Ezequiel Sculli and I announced that we are setting up Darwin AI!
My theory is that they are mostly AI companies that are starting up. Products of all colors for various pains/industries.
In fact, I’ve already met with a couple 👀.
👻 What does “Stealth startup” mean?
It means “Startup in stealth mode,” meaning you’re setting up the business without officially announcing the brand, team, etc.
🔧 What is it useful for?
To avoid problems related to an early-stage business. Here are some examples:
- Avoid hacking
- Move forward without a brand, saving a lot of time
- Be aggressive with things you try with less “fear” of what people will say. We should do this under any condition, but we’re human 🤣, “Stealth” helps a bit
☠️ What are the risks?
1. By Being In Stealth Mode, Failing To Sell To The First Handful Of Customers.
This is a serious problem. An early-stage startup has to focus on getting customers and iterating the product. PMF (Product Market Fit) is non-negotiable!
2. Being Afraid Of Someone Stealing Your Idea
🙌 My experience with “Stealth Mode”
At Darwin AI, we spent a few months in Stealth mode. It allowed us to be very aggressive in tests we wanted to do, without worrying about the brand. We were lucky to get clients anyway. It was companies in our network of contacts, people who wanted to test quickly, early adopters.
Moreover, this allowed us to have a much more aggressive launch when going “public.” Instead of launching with a “dummy landing,” we had a much more robust structure, with a sales and operations team to take advantage of the high flow of opportunities when publicly launching the brand.
📭 A message for founders in “Stealth mode”
We’re in an exciting year! Many companies are coming up in the AI and SaaS fields 🚀, we’re going to rewrite software and change the way of working in the coming years.
I’ve already spoken with some stealth mode founders who contacted me privately. If you’re reading this and you’re setting up something in the SaaS space? ✍️ Write to me! It doesn’t matter if you’re in “Stealth mode.”
I’m interested in investing, connecting, or trying to help.