The truth is that we work in a very small， tight-knit industry and news spreads fast. In the early days you don''t really want three extra teams hearing your ideas and gearing up to compete before you feel you''ve got a solid head start. Most people totally advise against stealth. They think that only by being open and testing your ideas in an open marketplace can you be successful. Be careful about this advice.

Also be careful about VCs. Most ones that I know have very high ethical standards， but once a VC has heard your idea he can''t "un-think" it. And these ideas have ways of seeping into board discussions with portfolio companies as in， "have you ever thought about trying A， B or C?" It''s mostly unintentional， but tacit knowledge about ideas spreads quickly amongst the chattering elite.

I actually like finding entrepreneurs who are more circumspect， less braggadocios and generally more planned about their actions.

2. Where Stealth is Bad. I do meet entrepreneurs who clearly fall on the other side of spectrum and are totally closed. I worked with one who was scheduled to talk about his company''s plans at a startup networking event. He considered pulling out because he wanted to stay in "stealth mode" and felt an event like this compromised him. I counseled him to do the event (it was high profile) and talk in broad themes about the areas in which his business would compete. There are very few truly novel ideas so talking in broad themes certainly wouldn''t give away any grand strategy. In stead he went to the event and told everybody "we''re in stealth mode and can''t yet reveal what we do." It went down like a lead balloon.

The biggest problem with over-stealthing yourself is that you cut off some of your most valuable resources in terms of testing your ideas， getting feedback and helping you figure out the potential flaws in your approach.

In my experience， entrepreneurs who are overly paranoid or are information hoarders rarely do well. They certainly struggle to find mentors as there is nothing more frustrating than trying to help a company who is afraid to tell you anything.

3. Market Today''s Puck， Not Where It''s Going. I often tell startups to "skate where the puck is going" as a metaphor for thinking about where the future lies and planning for that now.

But it is a big mistake to tell too many people where you''re heading. I call this "marketing futures." Marketing futures can be really good for enterprise software companies where the information is passed between sales rep and potential customer in terms of near-term roadmap. The buying cycles are often 3-6 months so you want to put your best future foot forward. But don''t let this information get out into the general press and don''t market more than a few months out.

We all know that much of early-stage technology startup success comes from execution and often what you''re working on today will be rolled out more seriously over the next several months. So I recommend that companies talk in detail about the puck at their feet but avoid talking about where the puck is going. While all your competitors are trying to copy your model， you''re already on to the next thing on your engineering team.

Nobody seems more disciplined at this tight-lipped future marketing than Apple and you can see how it has served them.

4. Don''t Market a Bad Product. Perhaps the most important lesson for first-time entrepreneurs is that you can''t have great marketing for a bad product. The corollary is that it is very hard to recover from a crappy marketing campaign that was over-hyped. In a world in which you''re encouraged to launch early and get feedback from customers you can often confuse "product launch" with "marketing."

I think a great example right now is turntable.fm. It''s a buggy product but pretty damn cool. I haven''t heard them pounding their chest and running big marketing campaigns. And the product itself is invite-only so they can control volume and manage everybody''s expectations. By the time they go (generally available product) I''ll bet the kinks are all worked out. And the anticipation of wanting to see the product will build.

The strategy they''re employing is called "velvet rope" as in what nightclubs do to build scarcity and interest in getting on the inside. It also helps to keep down issues with crowds getting too big， too early.

5. Don''t Blow Your Wad Early. There is a temptation to announce that you''re "first" at something， so you rush to market with announcements. I know because I did this in early 2000. We rushed to market to be first and got great coverage in the Financial Times (we were in London). But our product wasn''t ready for prime time and we struggled to live up to the hype we had created.