March 2025 — Ship Fast, Share More

“Vibe Coding” is the new paradigm. Open your mind and your code editor. Relax, let the good vibrations in. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Don’t think too much, ship fast.

Claude Code is the latest, and greatest, contender - but this approach is rapidly becoming the new normal across all code models.

I love the enthusiasm! We should all be at least experimenting. But I think the reality is a little more nuanced; I’ll expand on that next month. Until then, at least get your hands dirty! You can just do things.

MISSION+ Update

For those in Singapore, “Tech Tuesday” is a tie-up between MISSION+, Draper Startup House and The Working Capitol. We will be running interesting meetups every Tuesday, covering all aspects of software engineering leadership, startup engineering and the future of technology.

If you’re in Singapore come join us for the next event!

Reflections On The Mission

“I don’t want anyone to steal my idea.”

Here’s the problem: almost certainly, no-one cares. Ideas are easy, execution is hard. And your idea is probably not unique - if there really is no-one else looking at it, that might be for a reason.

Build out loud!

If being in stealth mode makes no real difference, why worry about it either way? The real challenge is that as a startup founder a major responsibility is ensuring you get feedback to validate you are building something useful.

But even more important than that are the serendipitous connections that we make. My career, nay my life, is full of fortuitous moments:

• The random person you meet who turns out to have the exact problem you’re solving for

• The introduction from a friend’s friend who joined the dots and realised there was opportunity for collaboration

• A chance meeting that led to a game-changing partnership or breakthrough

None of this can happen unless you share your idea with anyone who will listen. Share it with your neighbours. Share it with your dog. Put up the landing page with a ‘Register Interest’ button before it actually exists.

Build out loud.

What about other founders in the same space? Most founders - at least the true believers -  want to share, and often the enemy is not each other. The main competitor for robo-investors is keeping cash in low yield bank accounts or overly expensive financial advisors, not each other. The main competitor for cloud providers is on-prem infrastructure, not each other. The choice is fighting over a small pie, or growing the pie.

A final note - don’t be tempted to go stealth by getting people to sign NDAs. Ignoring the fact that they’re rarely enforceable, and proving that there has been measurable harm at this early stage is almost impossible - it adds a layer of friction at the time it is least wanted.

Asking potential investors to sign an NDA makes you look amateurish, plus they probably won’t sign. You want advice from someone, but first they need to sign an NDA? You’re the one asking for help, not them…

Build out loud.

For readers who have run a stealth mode startup, would you do it differently this time, or do you think it brought benefits? Please share your stories!

Interesting Articles

• Microsoft unveils Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum processor powered by topological qubits - OK so Microsoft won’t fix Teams, but they will create new forms of matter. Rightttt.

• Sesame - AI Lab Voice Demo - yeah we’re toast. This is a voice chatbot that has somehow managed to get latency down to the point where you’re just talking naturally. Ignoring the opportunity for abuse, this is going to be amazing for language practice, sales training, companions for those with limited social interactions, etc.

• Klarna's move away from Salesforce - the truth - the pitch that Klarna simply replaced Salesforce with an in-house LLM-developed application is great clickbait. The Klarna founder clearly spells out the reality.

This Is The Way

Feature A Fractional

We’re On A Mission

Crossing The Chasm - we can do it, it’s not impossible. Talk to MISSION+ for some war stories!

Until next month,

Ned & the MISSION+ team

P.S. If you would like to bring the MISSION+ team into your business to help, please reach out to [email protected]!

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