As Vinod Khosla stated, the foundation of the path to success is to first identify a real problem, or a "pain," to solve. Therefore, during the first phase, "Nail the Pain," of the Nail It Then Scale It process, your objectives are to:

1. Clearly understand the customer pain
2. Determine if this pain represents a real opportunity (a "monetizable customer pain")
3. Either discover you were wrong about the customer pain and then pursue a different pain, or discover you were right and then move on to the next phase, "Nail the Solution"

For a visual overview of the steps in Phase 1 - "Nail the Pain," see the figure below. We will cover Steps 1&2 in this section. The next section will cover Steps 3&4.

We encourage you to download the following checklist, which will help you as you go through the Nail It Then Scale It process.

(See Nail It Then Scale It, pgs. 65-66)