Stealth Mode for Personal Projects

Stealth Mode for Personal Projects

by Silvio Gulizia

The hard part of launching a new project is to start with nothing to show to who come to see what you are doing, only ideas. A way to avoid that is to work in stealth mode for a while, then to launch when you already have a few things to show. This approach comes both with positive and negative aspects.

I’ve been working on this blog for about three months now, mostly on the design and, guess what? What you see is not what I created :) After a lot of considerations, I ended up deciding to start on a new platform with a style I like (Posthaven) and writing in stealth mode before to launch the MVP of my new project. Spending more time now tweaking a custom design would have brought to compromise my plan: if I continued to focus on the details before approaching the core aspects of the blog — i.e. writing — I would never see this website evolve.

Joining The Stealth Mode Approach

When you work in stealth mode, in theory, no one knows what you are doing. Actually, there are always few people who know something. In startups world, these persons are investors, advisors and mentors, at least.

Stealth mode for personal projects is hard to practice. As a matter of fact, one of the first things you would need to do in order to be sure to achieve your goals is to commit yourself in front of friends. Yet, if you follow this rule, you’ll be soon out of stealth mode.

Recently, I published a post on Facebook to announce I was about to start writing in English. To say the truth, I didn’t share my intention to launch a new blog. It was because I didn’t realize it until a few weeks ago. I then shared the project with a few close friends and showed the website to a couple of them. I am wondering if they did read the posts or just gave a distracted look to the homepage. I didn’t ask for an accurate feedback, and it was a mistake. Anyway, I started this blog and my followers still ignore it exists. My dream is still in the drawer, even if the drawer is now open. I am in stealth mode, even if some people know about my intentions and a few readers already visited this website from all around the world.

To start a project in stealth mode, in my opinion, doesn’t mean you have to keep it hidden to everyone. You should start showing it only to a few people you don’t know, and who don’t know you. Without even announcing it to your follower, apart from an early proclamation that will serve to feel the wrist of your audience without pointing them to your product. In this way, you can collect some candid feedback while preparing to launch.

This attitude is not what stealth mode truly means. The definition, according to Wikipedia, refers to “… secretiveness, usually undertaken in order to avoid alerting competitors to a pending product launch or another business initiative”. What you hide from others are different things, such as existence, purpose, products, people involved, funding, brand name, or other important attributes. Even though, being in a state of semi-stealth mode gives you a lot of advantages.

Why to Keep the Secret

Working in stealth mode allows you to prevent the buzz before being ready to face it. This operating mode could be ideal to solidify your strategy, add new capabilities to your product, and gain new skills, rather than spending time and resources into branding before all you need would be ready for public appreciation.

There is also an element connected with the protection of intellectual property. To reveal your project is usually the best way to protect your idea, but it is even true that, if you spread it without having implemented at least a prototype, competitors could steal the concept.

Keeping the secret will be helpful especially while moving from the original intuition to the minimum viable product that will be necessary to test the market. Failure is now allowed and in same cases is also desirable.

Last but not least, you could enjoy the air of mystique that announcing something new without unveiling it will create among your followers. Unfortunately, this approach includes even disadvantages.

Stealth Mode Is Not Always a Good Idea

Adopting secretiveness about your project limits feedback opportunities. As a matter of fact, if you act in public from day one you will be able to validate your idea and get access to early customers even before to start writing a single line of code, a blog post, or something else related to your new project.

Maybe a closed beta could be a valid alternative to staying stealth. All you need to do is to invite a small group of people to discover something about your project. This strategy, which we could call semi-stealth, helps you getting feedback, ironing out product issues, finding the right pricing, refining UI, fixing bugs, and so on. From my point of view, this is the best approach.

Objective When Going in Stealth Mode

The most common reason to go stealth is that, if your reveal your intention too soon, people could dispute about it, confuse your ideas and making it a fail even before you launch. Otherwise, if you go out of stealth mode early, or you simply can handle the discussion about what you are doing, this will help you create a pre-launch buzz that will support the shipment of your product. This process is usually followed, for instance, with books and movies. In this case, it is usually clear when the product is ready to leave the stealth mode, but this rarely happens with a personal project.

When to Leave the Stealth Mode

Exiting a secret operations approach is a crucial step to take. First of all, because you need to define a “verification test” to determine if you are ready to release, even in beta. On the other hand, you need to be conscious that “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late”, as LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman once said.

In Moby Dick Ismael arrives first at New Bedford and then from here he goes to Nantucket, where he looks for a whaler. While other people, attracted by the sea, choose to go back to their homes, Ismael knows that the time has come when he will be ready to sail. He is aware of this because at the beginning of the story he felt that desire of suicide and he learnt that for him the only way to avoid a tragic end is to go to the sea.

There are occasions when you feel that kind of sentiment too. I am not speaking about suicide. In my case, it happened when I started to work on this blog project. Since the first word I’ve jotted down, I knew I needed to publish something very early. Time to exit the stealth mode is near. Next post will be the announcement of this new project, but in the meanwhile, please keep the secret :)

When to exit the stealth mode is a choise really hard to assume, but it is something you need to put in the plan, as a goal you need to reach. First step: get to Nantucket.

From Secret to Release

If you want to embrace stealth mode in your life, all you have to do is to keep the secret. Start working on a new project without sharing it with anybody. Then select at least three close friends to get feedback. Their pieces of advice will help you shape your minimum viable product.

Once the MVP is ready, share it with people who don’t now you. If necessary, fake your identity. When you have fixed the most of the bugs, start sharing it without any promotion. Wait until the first appreciations, then enjoy the venture.