School stress is in overdrive, but if you and your children keep a positive attitude, you as well as your child will be able to get through it worry-free! If your child has difficulty learning, assist in moulding him or her into an improved version of themselves by examining their thinking or mindset, so they may succeed both in and out of the classroom.
Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
You must assist your child in developing a “growth mentality” for them to achieve and thrive. It’s when an individual perceives that through determination and hard work, they can overcome difficult problems. They face their challenges full-on, try to learn, and therefore do not fear failure. When a youngster with such a growth mindset struggles with a mathematics problem, for example, they learn from mistakes and continue trying till they get it correctly.
A “fixed mindset,” on the other hand, is when a person thinks that their character, intelligence, and talents are unchangeable. When someone with a closed mind makes an error, they frequently perceive it as a failure rather than a chance to learn. For example, a child who is having difficulty with a math problem may become irritated and give up since they do not believe they are intelligent enough to do it correctly.
The Importance of a Growth Mindset When It Comes to Learning
A growth mindset is critical to a child’s development since it enables them to learn to cope with difficult events and apply that information to future scenarios. Pupils with a growth mentality outperform others with a fixed mindset because they are more willing to learn and develop their skills.
Helping Your Child Develop a Growth Mindset
Encourage an optimistic outlook on problems:
When something gets in the way of a child with a fixed mindset, they tend to give up. Your child will grow and understand they can accomplish anything if they put their minds to it if you have a more optimistic attitude on the problem.
Allow your youngster to reflect on a difficult situation for some time:
They can learn from mistakes and create ideas to better next time by analyzing how they handled the challenge they had and overcame previously.
Teach your youngster to compete against themselves:
Having the perspective that we are competing against ourselves is the only way to achieve personal accomplishment. Every day, we should strive to be the best versions of ourselves than the day before.
Your youngster will have the necessary tools in any situation if you assist them to shift from a fixed perspective to a growth mindset.
The mindsets of students and how they view their skills have an impact on their potential to achieve. Regrettably, many teachers have misinterpreted the concept of development mindset and introduced a fake growth mentality accidentally. As a parent, you may also help your children develop a growth mindset, which will benefit them in the long term.
I just celebrated my two-year anniversary at Hopin, having joined the company when it was just a few months old and in beta — pre-revenue, pre-funding, no full-time employees. Today, Hopin is over 800 employees and closed a $450 million Series D funding, having raised $1 billion to date.
I thought now would be a good time to sit down and reflect on the journey thus far and distill some of the stories and experiences into helpful lessons and takeaways.
Perhaps the best place to start is the beginning, as I get asked a lot about how I became one of Hopin’s first team members.
It was the generosity of a new friend in December 2018. A fellow I interviewed for my Medium publication Entrepreneur’s Handbook sent a flurry of one-line emails to folks in his network where he saw an overlap. One of them was to Johnny Boufarhat.
The flurry of introductions David Markovich sent. One was to Johnny Boufarhat. He spelled Johnny’s name wrong.
I was working on Party Qs, a conversation starter app, and Johnny was working on Hopin (back then it was “Hopiin”), a networking platform that connected people virtually over video. Johnny responds to the email and we hop on a call.
We instantly hit it off. Johnny was one of the most interesting people I had met. He had a genuine intelligence, not like an academic, but as a citizen of the world, born out of a deep sense of openness and ambition. He was endlessly curious, he liked to debate, and his communication style was, shall we say, colorful. It also amazed me how fast he moved as a developer. He could build a feature in a weekend, faster than any developer I had met before.
Over the first half of 2019, we started to build a friendship, fully remotely — Johnny in London while I was in Richmond, Virginia. Every time we hopped on Hangouts, it was only a matter of minutes before Johnny would start screensharing, showing me the latest feature he had built on Hopin. Each time, I became more and more intrigued. He was creating a true event experience, except it was virtual. What differentiated it from everything else on the market was its focus not on just consuming content (like webinars), but on actually connecting people around the world.
Soon, I ran one of the first events on Hopin. In mid-2019, I hosted a virtual pitch meetup for the online community of Entrepreneur’s Handbook.
That event is when everything clicked. I popped off two emails inviting my subscriber base. Using Hopin, I was able to host a successful event for hundreds of people around the world and make thousands of dollars effortlessly. If it was this easy for me, I thought, imagine what others could do with this. I saw a glimpse into the future of events, a solution for community engagement, remote work, and much more, all wrapped into the massive vision Johnny had.
I flew out to London in October 2019 and Johnny and I met for the first time in person and worked together. He introduced me to the best steak I’ve ever had at the restaurant BRAT in Shoreditch.
While Johnny worked on product development, fundraising, hiring, and everything really, I focused primarily on filling gaps in the GTM functions — sales, support, success, marketing — especially product marketing, content, and comms. In those days, there was no notion of a pandemic on the horizon. It was all outbound sales. Just getting anyone to try Hopin for their event for free was a win.
I closed Hopin’s first enterprise deal (Dell) in January 2020 after walking the expo floor with my laptop open at one of the most established startup conferences in San Francisco, TechCrunch Disrupt 2019.
Funny, little did I know, TechCrunch would later host Disrupt on Hopin in the following two years.
In February 2020, I remember being on the way back home from my second trip to London, after coworking with Johnny and the early Hopin team out of the Seedcamp Office. I was stopped in Heathrow airport and one of the airport personnel asked if I had been to Wuhan, China in the last two weeks. I replied no. Security then inspected my carry-ons and shoes. What is this coronavirus thing? I thought. I didn’t think much more of it as I boarded the plane home.
Only now do I realize I had no idea what was about to happen next.
Screenshots of my calendar in March 2020. Full names and company names are hidden for privacy.
As awful of a year that 2020 was for the world, it was inevitably a boon to the virtual events industry. Hopin became a lifeline when the events industry “pivoted to virtual.” Johnny had made the call to launch earlier in the year than we had planned for, but it certainly gave us a first-in-market advantage. We weren’t ready, but we made ourselves ready.
As you can probably tell from the screenshots of my calendar above, the demo requests avalanched into our inboxes. Our calendars were packed seven days a week. It was brutal, but it was electrifying. We couldn’t close deals fast enough. We couldn’t hire talent fast enough. Johnny encouraged everyone we hired to hire at least three more people as soon as they arrived. Hopin’s viral growth loop burned red hot as the number of events increased, bringing in more attendees. A percentage then became organizers, who created more events, which brought in more attendees, which created more organizers, and so on. Month over month, Hopin’s growth metrics soared.
During this period, there was a sort of bewildered comradery in the trenches. The team all had to wear multiple hats. Engineering and marketing also did sales, sales also did success, success also did support.
In June 2020, we brought in our first C-suite executive hire, Armando Mann, as Hopin’s Chief Business Officer and board member. With Armando’s GTM leadership experience at Salesforce, Dropbox, and Google, combined with Johnny’s unbeatable hype skills and ability to identify talent, we were able to scale rapidly as the pandemic set in.
I never imagined it would happen this fast. I knew going in that there was a good chance we would be successful and grow steadily. But not like this. This was, to borrow a phrase from Elon Musk’s favorite movie Spaceballs, ludicrous speed.
Source: dealroom.co and Google Finance as of March 1, 2021
All in all, Hopin has raised over $1 billion in two years.
There are so many stories to tell in and around these funding milestones that I’ll save for another day. But you may have noticed the jump in employees from 400 to 800 in 2021. This came from not just a powerful in-house recruiting engine but also the five acquisitions Hopin made, most notably StreamYard — one of the world’s leading live streaming video platforms — in January 2021 for $250 million.
If you haven’t read my first post from earlier this year, right after we acquired StreamYard, it has more about my first event, Hopin’s origin story, and a few other things I learned:
This nice article by Stephen Altrogge will help you stay alert and sharp mentally.
Are you dealing with mental fatigue?
Picture this scenario: You head to work, feeling as though you’re well-rested, and midway through your morning, you’re already tired. You’re drained and worn out, even though your day is barely started.
Or, through the course of a relatively light day of work — no meetings, no taxing decisions, no major fires to put out — you feel mentally and emotionally exhausted.
Or, you get these same feelings — mental tiredness, lack of brainpower to process even the simplest thoughts — on a Saturday, when things are at their least stressful.
If any of the above sounds familiar or you’ve had bouts with exhaustion, decreased motivation, lack of sleep or loss of appetite, or sustained irritability, you’re most likely suffering from mental fatigue.
Without proper care and attention to your mental health, mental fatigue can turn into far more severe conditions, including:
Anxiety
Burnout
Depression
Fluctuations in weight
Increased susceptibility to illness
In this guide, we’re going to break down what mental fatigue is, what causes it, and how you can overcome it.
Mental fatigue or mental exhaustion is just that, the sense that your brain is running on empty. You can’t think clearly. It’s a challenge to process even the simplest information. You’re mentally and emotionally drained.
For many individuals, they feel like their mind is in a constant fog.
A few examples of mental fatigue might include:
Asking someone the same question twice, without realizing it
Having to review basic information multiple times before grasping it
Snapping at unsuspecting friends, family, or coworkers over petty irritations
Concentration on any one task is nearly impossible, you have trouble focusing or maintaining focus, and even small things seem impossible.
Mental fatigue can happen to anyone at any time, especially those who’ve experienced very little rest over a certain period. Stress is a common trigger and the brain fog can last anywhere from a few hours to a few days.
For many people, rest is the solution to mental fatigue. In other instances, by simply stepping away from the source of stress for a while, you can take back control of your mental state.
For others, however, mental exhaustion may prove debilitating. If not dealt with properly, it can cause serious health issues that go way beyond brain fog.
In extreme cases, mental fatigue may lead to detachment and isolation from others, deep feelings of anger, apathy, or hopelessness.
Irritability (often increasing in intensity as the fatigue worsens)
Lack of productivity
Trouble focusing on even the simplest, most straightforward tasks
Feeling less positive and more pessimistic
Anger at the smallest issues or inconveniences
Lack of concern for yourself or those around you (even those you care about)
Isolation or detachment from others, either on purpose or subconsciously
Sense of impending dread or constant hopelessness
From a physical standpoint, mental exhaustion may result in:
Headaches
Changes in appetite
Weight gain or loss (often dramatic changes)
Aches and pains
Chronic physical fatigue, weakness, tiredness
Trouble sleeping, including insomnia
Greater susceptibility to illness
Chronic mental fatigue will heighten physical and emotional symptoms. What may otherwise be a minor headache can become a crushing pain when mentally exhausted. A fleeting bout of anxiety in normal circumstances can result in uncontrolled worry.
Outward signs of mental fatigue
Beyond your mental or physical state, mental fatigue will also impact your behavior. If left unchecked, it can create rifts in your relationships, both personal and professional.
Mental fatigue places a strain on your social interactions, either causing you to lash out at others or withdraw from those closest to you.
You can also experience a sudden lack of motivation. The worse the mental exhaustion, the more likely you are to call in sick, look for reasons to avoid or miss work, or reject social or work-related commitments.
In the worst cases, your productivity may drop dramatically, and you may not recognize the person you’ve become.
Mental fatigue can happen to anyone, anywhere, anytime, and in any environment. It can be caused by many different factors, both personal and professional.
Some causes of mental fatigue and exhaustion include:
Poor balance between your personal and professional life
Lack of satisfaction with your current job situation or being unemployed
Financial struggles
Living with a serious illness of having chronic health issues
Having to care for someone with a serious illness or who has chronic health issues
Being isolated socially
Bottom line: If you don’t pay close attention to your emotional health, social support system, or overall work-life balance, you’re more susceptible to mental fatigue.
8 Scientifically Proven Strategies For Overcoming Mental Fatigue
Thankfully, if you suffer from mental fatigue, there are ways to alleviate the mental drain.
From changes in lifestyle and work habits to taking time for yourself, eliminating exhaustion isn’t difficult. It does, however, require developing healthy habits and sticking to them.
Structure your day to match rising and falling energy levels
One of the first steps to reducing mental fatigue is getting in tune with how your energy levels rise and fall. Even at your most rested, you deal with ebbs and flows of energy throughout your day.
Everyone does. You have periods of high-energy and moments when that energy wanes. These up and down cycles are called “ultradian rhythms”, and each cycle lasts somewhere between 90 to 120 minutes.
In their book The Power of Full Engagement, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz note:
These ultradian rhythms help to account for the ebb and flow of our energy throughout the day. Physiological measures such as heart rate, hormonal levels, muscle tension and brain-wave activity all increase during the first part of the cycle—and so does alertness. After an hour or so, these measures start to decline. Somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes, the body begins to crave a period of rest and recovery.
You’re at your most productive in 90 to 120-minute peak energy cycles and your least productive during 20-minute “troughs” in between.
To take advantage of your body’s natural rhythms, figure out when your peaks and valleys occur and schedule your day’s task around them. To learn your ultradian rhythms, keep a log for a few weeks of your energy levels each hour. This will give you a fairly good feel for when your energy is at its highest and when you need to take breaks. Alternatively, you can use the Rise sleep app to help you calculate your ultradian rhythms.
Structure your day so that your work on your most important tasks when your energy levels are highest. When your energy levels dip, tackle the mundane stuff – answer email, review reports or saved articles, or perform low-priority tasks that don’t demand too much or your brainpower.
Spend energy on high-value activities
If you want to make the most of your brainpower, don’t let it go to waste. Like a vehicle left out in the elements to rust and decay, your brain loses its edge when it’s not regularly challenged or engaged. When you’re less engaged, it’s easier for mental fatigue to creep in.
Build your mental strength by engaging in high-value activities, like reading books (and not Facebook), learning a new skill, or doing hobbies and tasks that enrich you. Find activities and socialize with individuals that will improve your quality of life.
Obviously, there’s a time and place for turning your brain off and binging Netflix. But when your mind is constantly engaged in things you find fulfilling or with people you value, your mental health is less likely to suffer.
Eat foods that will fuel your brain
This is somewhat obvious, but it needs to be stated. Nutrition is a key factor in staying healthy and performing at peak levels.
Simply put, eating good foods will make you feel good. Eating bad foods will make you feel bad.
If you want to keep your mind at peak performance, eliminate refined sugars and heavily processed foods from your diet. Limit caffeine. When you eat, focus on proteins and snack wisely. Avoid candy bars or chips in favor of nuts (such as almonds), fruits, and whole grains.
Additionally, drink lots of water. Aside from the headaches it can create, dehydration impacts your ability to think, reason, and process information. Staying hydrated also maintains your energy levels and keeps fatigue at bay.
Reduce decision fatigue
If you’ve ever felt drained after having to make a bunch of decisions, then you know what decision fatigue is.
In addition to draining on your ability to think clearly, decision fatigue can drain you physically. It can feel like you have a thousand pounds of weight on your head and your shoulders.
To avoid decision fatigue, which often comes from taking on too many tasks at one time, try setting aside specific blocks of time to address specific tasks.
For example, if you’re like most, you read and respond to email throughout the day. Instead, set aside a block of time in the morning and afternoon to address them all at once. Use Freedom to block your email except for those set times.
In addition, take on your most important or pressing projects early in the day when your alertness and energy levels are at their highest. Your mental abilities will be clearer, your mind more focused, and your attention span longer.
By optimizing your time and keeping your attention on one thing at a time, you’ll be more focused on the decision-making process without them overwhelming you mentally.
Kill distractions
Of all the ways to beat mental fatigue, eliminating distractions is perhaps the most straightforward. And the most difficult to master.
After all, with so many online distractions to steal your attention from what’s truly important, wasting time is a modern-day pastime. Surfing the internet, scrolling through Facebook, watching YouTube videos, perusing Pinterest, curating playlists on Spotify, playing any number of addictive app games. And on and on.
All of this sensory overload, however, also overloads our brains. The more we engage with time-wasting distractions, the more stress they can create.
Use Freedom to block the apps and websites that distract and overload your brain. Create a recurring session every morning so that you do deep work first rather than wasting time doomscrolling on Facebook.
When it comes to your mental health, exercise and sleep are invaluable.
With exercise, it doesn’t require the time commitment as many people think. Moderate exercise – walking at a brisk pace every day for 20 to 30 minutes – can do wonders for your mental well-being.
Beyond helping you get into better shape physically, exercise boosts your immune system and increases endurance. It’s also a great stress reducer and will improve both your mood and anxiety levels.
It’s critical that whatever your exercise routine, it’s easy for you to follow and stick to.
Sleep is also critical. Few things will improve your health faster than getting consistent, sustained periods of sleep. And the truth is, how you sleep (i.e. sleep hygiene) is equally as important as how much.
Your environment should be conducive to a good night’s rest. The room should be dark, quiet, and at a cool, comfortable temperature. Try to avoid electronics, particularly smartphones and tablets, at least two to three hours before bed. (Reading a physical book before bed is perfectly okay.)
As with exercise, create a sleep routine that is consistent and easily repeatable. Keep it calm and ensure that it occurs at the same time every evening (and that you wake up at the same time, too) to ensure the best night’s rest.
Take regular breaks throughout the workday
Conventional wisdom says that the harder you work, and the fewer breaks you take, the more productive you’ll be. While it may feel like you’re getting more done by “powering through,” the opposite is true.
The reality is that your work slows, your focus drifts, and you grow less productive as the day wears on. You also stand a greater chance of increasing your stress levels versus those who take periodic breaks during the day.
Get up from your desk. Take a walk or do some other form of exercise. Sit outside. Visit with fellow coworkers for a few minutes about something other than work.
Even if it’s just for five to ten minutes, briefly removing yourself from the stresses of your day can be very calming. It also gives your mind a break and lets you quickly recharge for the next block of tasks.
Finally, if your brain is on overload, or it feels like your mind is about to melt, shut it down, unplug it, and take a nap. Seriously.
Naps, especially power naps, are the equivalent of plugging in your smartphone in the middle of the day to get a little extra charge.
You may not be tired. You may still have plenty of gas in the tank. But a quick nap between 10 to 30 minutes can get your energy and performance back to their early morning levels.
Albert Einstein used naps to power his brain. His strategy was to hold something in his hand that would make a loud noise when it hit the floor. He would then settle into his armchair and nap until his hand relaxed and the thing he was holding hit the floor. This would allow him to drift into a light doze without falling into a deep sleep.
Take Back Your Brain
Mental fatigue and exhaustion is a serious condition. Not only does it impact your mental and physical health, but it can also harm your productivity at work and your personal relationships at home.
Worse, it can change who you are as an individual, result in depression, and seriously limit your capacity to function normally.
However, by taking stock of your mental health and employing one or more of the above methods for addressing mental fatigue, you’ll find yourself healthier, far more focused, and free from debilitating stress.
Talking Nina is a PR and marketing expert for authors & books | She help writers to reach more readers and get visibility
If there was one word to best describe the past two years, it would be ‘change’. Everything changed: our workplace, our vaccination status, our relationships, our behavior when we’re around people we don’t know. And of course, so did our buying behavior.
The pandemic has been a struggle for companies not only because some had to close down, but also because the environment they’ve been working in no longer exists. Entrepreneurs-to-be will also have to deal with a completely new picture of prospective customers, according to experts.
Some trends and changes are here to stay. I want to highlight three of the most important consumer trends that originated in the pandemic but will still be valid in 2022 and onwards. Along with ideas on how to tackle them in marketing.
Be a helpful brand
As a communication consultant, I help companies strategically plan and execute their marketing and PR activities. During the past 1.5 years, some of my clients weren’t sure whether or not to continue their marketing campaigns. Airing TV spots that announce the next big fashion collection would be a waste of money if all the shops stayed closed. Creative copies needed to be changed, no client wanted to distribute an online video starring reuniting families or people that celebrate.
And while it often made sense to change the creative, the worst thing companies could actually do was just stop talking to their clients. It’s a relationship they nourish with their audience. We wouldn’t turn silent and talk no more to our friends and families, simply because we’re stuck at home. So why in business?
According to Kantar’s COVID-19 Barometer study, 77% of customers wanted companies to be helpful throughout the ‘new everyday life,’ and 75% of the respondents said brands should also be informing the public about their activities to combat the issues at hand. These responses clearly state what consumers wanted to hear. This intriduced a playing field for CSR and sustainability activities. Being supportive was no longer a nice-to-have for companies, but a must-have.
Look at these examples. They perfectly show how companies in different areas showed they cared for the society:
The entertainment industry was down. So Spotify decided to launch a new tool that allowed artists to fundraise directly from fans through their Spotify artist profiles.
You will find tons of such examples, and it’s just the beginning. This trend will certainly increase in the future, simply because customers demand brands to be nice and helpful. Otherwise, they’ll simply not buy from them.
Especially in the last two years, people were cutting down costs and switched from more expensive to cheaper offers. Brand names weren’t the driving factor for buying decisions anymore.
My personal best case for this theory is Gurkerl.at, an Austrian online food retailer. Until one year ago, I didn’t know it even existed. For me, it emerged out of nowhere. Now, nearly everybody around me switched from buying groceries at a Billa or Bipa shop to this supplier. Why? The most frequent answer I got was: “Products cost the same but are delivered right to my door”.
A McKinsey report, entitled ‘The Quickening’ also stated that “consumers are going with brands that are convenient, reliable and have the products and services they are seeking”. It also mentions the exponential growth rate of online shopping during the last months, fanned by the lockdowns, which was similar to the previous ten years.
Don’t panic. It sounds more difficult than it is. The key is to understand what the consumer actually needs and change your offer accordingly. Take a look at these examples, they might better visualize what I mean:
Austrian kitchen studios, for example, decided to provide virtual planning sessions and pre-orders for their clients during the lockdowns so that the kitchen would be ready in no time once the retailers were allowed to open up again.
If we adapt our offers to the changes in our customers’ lives, there is no reason for them to switch to competitors, and we can even attract new ones very quickly.
But they are certainly not the most engaging or innovative method to excite our target audience. ‘Make it memorable’ is true for the customer buying experience and also for the event industry.
According to Gina Fleck, senior director of strategy and insights and promotion and loyalty solutions at Merkle, Inc., “brands were pushed to try new ways of doing business and to accelerate innovation in areas like technology, partnerships, and rewards, and that has led to brands connecting with customers in new ways.”
If we truly want to make a lasting impression, we need to think out of the box when it comes to entertaining our clients. Before COVID-19 we put time and energy into the organization of an event. In times when people prefer to or must stay home, we have to bring up the same level of motivation for our virtual events.
I’ve participated in a few really great events lately and summarized the elements I appreciated most:
Mozilla Hubs is a great web application to use pre-build virtual worlds or set up your own. Guests can join the location as avatars and talk to each other via video and sound. You can place presentations, pictures, PDFs, videos, and texts into this world, which everybody is able to read or interact with. Have a look at one which I created for a project.
Another supplier is Roomkey. Here, your location could look like a real posh event location, a board room, a stage, and much more.
Capterra provides a list of similar programs on their website, as well.
You see, there are many ways to host a virtual event in a location that can surprise people. It does not always have to be Zoom or Teams. Once the location is set, we have to entertain the guests:
Ask people to turn on the camera. Actually seeing people helps to create a feeling of togetherness and ensures guests pay attention to what’s happening.
Sent your guests a gift. One event I attended sent small Gin and Tonic boxes to their guests, so we could toast to each other with the same dring in the networking session. Like we would in a physical event.
Takeaways
What does all this mean for entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketers? Rethink the way your clients live nowadays. Google explained that marketers’ who own the new at-home experiences of their audience will see next-level empathy from customers.
No matter if you’re building your business or if you’ve already an established company, make sure you take into account how the lives of your clients changed.
Short and quick, here are the three learnings based on the consumer trends that will stay with us in 2022:
Provide value and be helpful in order to stay in the relevance-set of your clients. And tell them about it.
Offer products or services that facilitate a convenient life for your audience. This will help to maintain their loyalty.
Hybrid events are here to stay. Innovate early to stand out.
One statement to remember from the pandemic and this article: Value and convenience drive customer loyalty.
Richard Fang is a Youtuber and a personal finance and marketing content creator
Let’s take a look at both use cases and what you should do.
We’ve all heard of it at least once. Someone has an awesome idea, but they can’t tell you yet.
It’s most common when you’re talking to a friend or acquaintance, and they mention that they’re working on a huge idea, but they can’t tell you yet because they’re working on it in stealth.
This doesn’t even have to be a startup. It could be a Youtube channel or even a blog. After all, if they tell you about this brilliant million or billion-dollar idea, you could just steal it yourself, right?
“Oh yeah I am working on a big idea but I am doing it in stealth” — said someone at one point
I’ve always just shrugged it off and never pushed them to tell me, after all, why is it my business to know. Recently, however, DevRev, a startup co-founded by ex-CEO and co-founder Nutanix, launched into the market after being in stealth for over eight months.
They announced a considerable seed round of $50 million and the fact 75 employees were already working for the startup. The idea was focused on linking developers and customers together with a CRM to avoid the siloed approach to developing software.
It sounds simple on paper, but ironically, not many tools out there do this. On the other side, there is a community of hackers and entrepreneurs who share everything they’re doing, even revenue numbers, publically.
Both are different approaches to building an idea or startup yet can be successful depending on each situation.
Let’s take a look at the viability of going stealth first
Funding for stealth startups has actually gone up over time since 2016. So what are the reasons why you should go stealth?
Just for reference, I am not talking about companies that execute stealth projects within an existing business. For example, Microsoft used to call the Windows 95 under project Chicago. This is purely for new ideas or startups that want to remain hidden under the public eye.
Preparing for a big bang launch
As mentioned with the DevRev example, some startups want to generate huge press with a massive release. However, this strategy only works if you already have a significant following on social media or have PR connections ready in the works to go to market.
In the case of DevRev, a considerable seed round and PR connections made for a great story with many tech and startups news sites picking upwind of the recent launch.
This means, for the most part, unless you have a huge release or you have PR connections, going stealth, for this reason, isn’t going to work for you. You’re better off doing early releases and getting product feedback early on in the process.
To hide information from competitors
For the most part, this is why people think they need to go into stealth mode. After all, once you go public, all your competitors are going to steal your idea.
But this is far from reality, and there should only be two reasons why you should even bother going into stealth mode for this reason.
One is if you’re working on a high-tech idea that might need patents or the like. This means you might be in industries like pharmaceutical or other cutting-edge fields. These are industries where other companies do tend to copy off each other, so being in stealth mode initially does actually make a lot of sense.
Otherwise, the other reason is if you have one specific competitive advantage that a competitor could steal from you and there’s an actual reason for you to ‘hide.’ To give an example, Firefly, a startup that’s looking to leverage ride-share vehicles to create a smart city media network, did exactly this a few years ago.
They planned to put screens on vehicles which isn’t a revolutionary idea. However, it’s the IoT data that these screens collect which made it a unique value proposition. Firefly purposely held off going public with this information, so it had enough of a gap between its competitors to execute its strategy.
The question is, do you truly have a competitive advantage?
Does your idea have a true and unique value proposition that competitors could quickly copy and spin it up into their own product if revealed in the market?
Most of the time, this will not be the case which brings us to the third reason why a startup operates in stealth — fear.
This could be a combination of being fearful of their competitors or even releasing a product into the market that others might scrutinize. However, as the founder of LinkedIn rightfully mentions, your first product should not be perfect and might actually be an indicator that you launched too slowly.
“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late” — Reif hoffman
Thus we take a look at one of the most important points for going public early.
Get product feedback to build your idea or startup
This is probably the most important reason for building your idea publically. Although you might not release a fully built product, you can make prototypes or early releases to a private or public audience.
This means, however, you can start building a userbase early, so when you launch, you don’t start with absolutely anything.
Although this might not be an issue for some, it’s important to get early product-market validation for most who are working on their startup or ideas. This is so you don’t waste your own important resources during the early stage.
Going stealth means you might not be able to secure funding as easily
Many startups that launch in stealth reveal to have massive funding rounds. However, most of the time, these are successful entrepreneurs who already have a network to rely on.
If you’re starting fresh, you most likely do not have this, and if you’re launching in stealth, without any traction or history of success in the past, you’re probably not going to find it easy to raise a seed round.
You’re better off launching publically
Going public early and getting early adopters or product feedback will triumph most of the other reasons you can throw at going into stealth mode. If you’re not sure, then it’s probably an indication that you don’t need to go into stealth.
Most of the time, only the most seasoned veterans in the market will know if going stealth is a good idea.
