I see more and more technical entrepreneurs who seem to have everything going for them—vision, motivation, passion, a good business plan, product, the willingness to pivot, and money, yet they can't close customers. Maybe it's time to look harder at the mantra of a new breed of gurus and successful entrepreneurs, including Steve Blank and Eric Ries, called nail it then scale it (NISI).

You can review all the specifics of this approach in a book by Nathan Furr and Paul Ahlstrom, appropriately titled Nail It then Scale It: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Creating and Managing Breakthrough Innovation (http://www.amazon.com/Nail-then-Scale-Entrepreneurs-Breakthrough/dp/0983723605), but I will present a brief summary of it here. I found their five phases of the process to be compelling, based on my own years of experience mentoring startups: