Nail It Then Scale It Book Reviews

Nail It then Scale It does a great job synthesizing the current thinking around disruptive innovations and entrepreneurship and channeling it into an actionable set of frameworks and processes. Both the recommended actions and there sequence seem very practical to me, and I think this should serve as a great tool for start-up teams. Congratulations.

The principles in Nail It Then Scale It provide a proven formula for entrepreneurial success.  The truth is that most successful businesses are not built on one extraordinary idea.  Instead, they are built on many ideas, followed by tons of hard work, research, iteration and listening to customers who articulate their pains and problems.  The NISI checklist in the appendix is pure gold for entrepreneurs!

I loved it. How rare to find practical, hands on advice from someone who has actually done it. I read it with a perspective of “take home value” and I found ideas that I could apply in every chapter. In my world time is the most precious commodity so it is the ultimate compliment to say that your book was well worth the time I spent reading it.

Wish I had read this 30 years ago.

I have been an advisor/consultant to early stage startups for years-as well as an active angel investor. I am 70 pages into the book and as I read Nail It Then Scale It, I have have found almost every page full of critical and impactful commentary and direction. Possibly the best scripted directional work I have seen in helping early stage startups “see the light” as to what to do/not to do. All the authors comments have resonated with me big time. I would like to buy 20 additional books to send to my early stage entrepreneurs and fellow angel networks.

Nail It Then Scale It identifies the patterns and methods that are driving numerous technology startups to success. Entrepreneurs who read it and us it will dramatically improve their ability to build a winning company faster.

For a seed-stage venture investor, The Nail It Then Scale It process stands alone as the most effective tool for helping entrepreneurs of ever level of experience chart a clear path to start-up success.

The transformation of Ancestry.com began after understanding and applying the models and principles described in this book. That was the catalyst behind the change at Ancestry.com that turned out to be one of my greatest learning experiences.

Since 1995 I succeeded in creating two software startups without funding and failed in others. For the past several years I’ve read programming books hoping to find a technical edge, and entrepreneurial books to determine what I did wrong and what I must do to get it right the next time.

I concluded that more programming is pointless until I find the right idea and validate my business model, but the entire process wasn’t clear to me.

Then I read, Nail It then Scale It. Complimentary to the book Boom Start, it is the best entrepreneurial book I’ve ever read. Within the first twenty pages I recognized my previous mistakes. Now I better understand the entire process of innovation, identifying deep customer pain, testing and validating solution hypotheses.

This book teaches the innovation and validation process from start to finish. By applying its best practices, l have the confidence I need to build the next big thing–one that delivers a simple, elegant solution that customers’ want.

As a first time entrepreneur, I found this book’s advice incredibly helpful. The concrete advice of how to go about fine tuning the product details and the message made it easy to confidently pursue our startup’s initial stages. We nailed a specific set of product features, prioritized them properly and priced it appropriately based on the customer interview process. Having many friends and colleagues in tech startups and been a technical leader at many others, it felt like we cut a year off of the typical fits and starts that most tech companies undergo zigzagging to the right product and market positioning. The advice about keeping the scale small until then matched our own instincts and saved us from a ton of unnecessary dilution. No tech company entrepreneur should get started without reading this book.

Building products that people want is hard and costs lots of money (mostly because we miss the mark the first, and second, and third time around before we get it right). I read Nail It Then Scale It and it immediately resonated. As an entrepreneur I find myself constantly in product development mode. The steps outlined in the book cut time (50%+) and cost (80%+) out of our product development cycle. Nail It Then Scale It doesn’t dance around theory, it dives right into the nuts and bolts of identifying need, and the step-by-step process of building a great product that will sell the moment it ships. Good entrepreneurs have solid product intuition – great entrepreneurs will follow Nail It Then Scale It and find out how to nail it the first time around. Great read – strongly recommended.