Megan McCarthy had an interesting piece over on Valleywag today about “stealth startups”. Her position is that “[s]tealth startup, as a term and a concept, needs to die.” As you can imagine, we don’t really agree with Megan on this point. We are, for all intents and purposes, a “stealth startup” right now, and there are two very valid reasons for it.

First and foremost, we’re in the process of preparing a patent application with our attorneys which goes to the heart of the Rogomo product. The patent rules are very strict, and if we make our invention public before filing our application, we can lose any chance of getting our patent. We can’t let that happen.

Second, there’s a real value to being the first mover in the market. The product we’re going to be rolling out has valuable concepts that we’re simply not ready to share. More importantly, there are big players out there with a lot of money who, if they knew about our idea (and liked it), could throw a few million dollars at the idea and be up and running in short order. Again, we can’t chance it.

So that’s why we’re proud to be a “stealth startup”. That said, we’re not one of those “stealth startups” like the one Megan is talking about that claim that they’re going to be so revolutionary that they can’t even disclose their own name. Our name is Rogomo and will be Rogomo and not Revolution (no offense, Steve Case). We’re just a plain startup trying to make it in the world, not a Web 2.2, 4.7, or Web X company. And, who knows, there’s every chance that if we told you our entire business plan now, you may tell us that we aren’t unique at all. But why give our competitors time to catch up to us if we don’t have to?

So, while Megan may be right that some companies need to calm down a bit and not take themselves so seriously, she should also understand that there are a lot of good reasons for going stealth.

Have a great holiday weekend everybody.