"It's Facebook, but with the Secret Sauce!" they proclaim. Who knows, this could be similar to saying, "It's Fillet Mignon, but with the Secret Sauce!"
Did it ever occur to you that I may not want my Fillet Mignon with "Secret Sauce?"
Of course, it's good that people don't talk about their services because of course I'm going to drop what I'm doing and start doing their idea from scratch. ;) But the most annoying thing is when one person asked me what I did and then said "Stealth mode" and walked away. I thought, why the heck are you asking people if you don't tell them what you're doing! Unless, maybe it was something very similar to what I was doing. :)
What's annoying is that too many people take themselves way too seriously.
It was cool for transmeta, but immediately after it became cheesy.
On the other hand, when you have an idea, or a solution, and you're evaluating it, and trying to determine what the market is, what technological solutions are needed, or even if it is viable, you don't want to start talking about what you're doing too soon.
Not because your idea is super secret-- but because your idea is evolving every week. If you're doing a social network (And by the way, if your social network doesn't already have 1M members right now, please stop and find something interesting to work on-- you already missed the party)... but your niche is changing each week- one week it is cat owners, next week it is ferret owners-- you don't want to talk about it and sound like a goofball who is a member of the "get-rich-quick-scheme-of-the-week" club.
If you're really in stealth mode, you won't ever use the phrase "stealth mode". You would simply not talk about it.
However, when talking to friends who know I'm working on something, it would be nice if there was a phrase to use that says "it is too early to talk about right now, but I'm not trying to be pretentious."
Maybe just "early stage" is the phrase to use.
As for titles, I always hated the CxO titles-- they say to me "these are titles we give to MBA idiots cause they insist that their air of pomposity be respected, but secretly we know anyone with this title is an clueless and not worth spending time with at parties."
Personally, I'm going with founder. It is way too early to come up with a job title to specify exactly what my responsibilities are-- if it isn't done yet, it is my responsibility!
Though the phrase is a bit silly, most startups spend some time in this state. Maybe the reason the phrase has a bad odor is that the longer you spend in this state, the less likely you are to succeed.