Thoughts

Building a Brand in Stealth Mode

A neat stack of manuscript pages with a brass paper clip on a warm wooden desk in soft daylight.

Tech startups are built on technology, products and people. When you're still in stealth mode, it's tempting to ignore branding altogether, but that's a mistake. When your company goes out into the market, investors and customers will want assurances that you have a great product and the people to take it successfully to market.

Tech execs are usually engineers, and they often assume that their tech/product will sell itself. That may be so (however unlikely), but even in stealth mode, you can prepare the market for your entry by publishing content that zeroes in on the trend you're riding, and offers provocative ideas about how that trend will evolve.

I worked with a lot of stealth mode startups when I ran a tech PR agency, and our formula for a successful launch included pre-building the market based on the urgency of the problem you're solving, what kind of solution looks likely, and why your company is perfectly positioned to succeed after launch. I did this a number of times with startup executives.

One example that stood out was meeting with a stealth storage tech startup six weeks before their market entry. Within six weeks, we had briefed all of the key storage analysts, published problem/solution articles in key venues, and introduced their C-suite team to the market through opinion pieces. The result was a successful launch, followed within a few weeks by a $300 million acquisition.

It's not a mystery. Waiting until your fully-built website goes live and your press release hits the wire simply delays a strong market reaction. Your VC team can help prep the ground a bit, but C-suite execs can help by posting bold, trend/problem/solution-oriented content and building a brand before the official launch.

These pieces are written for founders and C-level operators at B2B technology companies. If you want this kind of writing under your own name, that is how I work, and pricing starts at $1,500.

More thoughts

Inventing the FuturePublic renown goes to tech executives who make bold predictions about what will happen, rather than explaining what's happening now. Why Executive Social Media Campaigns FailEvery company wants to sell its products, but C-suite executives build their personal brands by articulating a compelling vision, not with product marketing. Avoiding JerkophobiaMaking bold predictions is risky, and most executives are afraid to get it wrong. Vision: Seeing the Big PictureThe leaders we call visionaries always combine a solid grasp of what their companies can do (and why it's better), mapped against a larger understanding of business and society. Writers Versus ChatbotsSince chatbots came into common use a few years ago, people like me who got paid to write for others have seen a huge drop in business. What's In A Brand?The digital world is incredibly noisy. Trillions of text lines and images strive for attention from a few billion eyeballs.

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