Olefin metathesis is a versatile synthetic tool for the redistribution of alkylidene fragments at carbon-carbon double bonds. This field, and more specifically the development of task-specific, latent catalysts, attracts emerging industrial and academic interest. This tutorial review aims to provide the reader with a concise overview of early breakthroughs and recent key developments in the endeavor to develop latent olefin metathesis catalysts, and to illustrate their use by prominent examples from the literature.