Build It. Nail It. Scale It.

How to Get Clarity: A Framework for Knowing What Matters Most

Apr 21, 2025

This is part of my How to CEO series—a collection of tactical, real-world guides for startup leaders. If you’re building or leading a company, these are the conversations most people avoid—but the ones that actually move the needle.

You can read:

This one is about zooming out, seeing your company clearly, and focusing on what actually matters right now.

Most startups don’t fail from lack of effort. They fail from working hard on the wrong thing.

This framework that I learned from one of my clients —Build It. Nail It. Scale It.—exists to fix that.

It helps you get out of the weeds and ask the only question that matters:

What’s the single most important thing right now?

Not what’s on fire. Not what’s politically important. Not what’s exciting. The one thing that actually moves the business forward. From the balcony, there’s always a clearest next step. This framework helps you find it.

The best CEOs I coach—especially the ones who’ve done it before—know how to stop, push back from the table, and say, “Let’s get clear.” Not just to themselves, but to their boards, their teams, and their investors. That clarity builds momentum. That clarity is what this is about.

Let’s break it down.

Build It

The only goal: ship something and start learning.

From the balcony: prove someone wants it.

You’re not building a company yet. You’re building a product and a feedback loop.

You know you’re still in Build It when:

You don’t have customers using the product
You haven’t collected any real feedback
You can’t point to actual traction—just potential

This is the phase for “founder mode.” You do whatever it takes to get something into market and into someone’s hands. You text friends. You walk dogs. You hand-deliver the cookies. You get signal.

And yet—this is where a lot of teams stall without knowing it. They overbuild. Overthink. Obsess over long-term tech choices or org charts. I had a head of engineering once burn a month picking the “right” platform for future extensibility—before we had a single user.

That’s not strategy. That’s fear.

You’re not playing chess. You’re playing checkers. Move fast, learn something, get in the game.

Until you have something in market and someone paying attention, nothing else matters.

Nail It

The only goal: find a repeatable, predictable, projectable go-to-market motion.

From the balcony: prove you can repeat it.

You’ve seen sparks. Now you need to figure out what’s actually working—and why. You’re testing price points. Channels. Messaging. ICPs. You’re listening closely. Adjusting. Watching patterns emerge.

Think of your company like a fire:

Build It is where you collect sparks.
Nail It is where you learn how to make fire.
Scale It is when you build a team to keep it burning—without you feeding it constantly.

Nail It is where most startups die.

Not because they don’t try hard enough, but because they believe they’ve nailed it before they have. These happy ears are deadly.

They confuse early wins for repeatability. They close a few deals. Get some positive feedback. Hire three reps before they’ve really nailed it. Spend $100K on ads without knowing CAC. It feels like traction—but it’s noise.

Traction ≠ repeatability.

Repeatability means: we do this, and this happens. It’s boring. Reliable. Unsexy. Profitable—or on the way.

You know you’re ready to move on when growth is bottlenecked by capacity—not chaos.

More budget = more customers. More SDRs = more pipeline. More reps = more Closed Won. You’re not guessing. You’re executing.

Scale It

The only goal: expand capacity without breaking what works.

From the balcony: prove others can run it.

Now you’re building the company. Hiring managers. Tracking metrics. Delegating. Replacing “heroics” with systems.

But scaling doesn’t mean coasting. It means everything gets harder.

The team gets bigger. Communication breaks. Customers expect more. You stop being the doer. You become the coach.

This is where founders get caught clinging to old ways of working. Or holding onto people who were great in the chaos but can’t grow with the company. Or losing touch with the customer signal because layers have formed and feedback gets filtered.

And the biggest trap? Thinking you’re ready to scale just because you raised money.

You’re not.

Fuel doesn’t help if the engine isn’t running.

From the Balcony: What Phase Are You In?

Build It
Top Priority: Get something into market and start learning
You’re Ready to Move On When:
You have an MVP in market, real user feedback, and sparks of traction—someone’s using it, paying for it, or telling a friend.
Example Behavior:
CEO is doing sales calls. PM is shipping fast. You’re begging friends to try it. One customer says, “This is exactly what I needed.”

Nail It
Top Priority: Find a repeatable, predictable, projectable go-to-market motion
You’re Ready to Move On When:
You can acquire and serve customers reliably—and growth is gated by spend or team, not uncertainty.
Example Behavior:
You A/B price points. You test channels. You hire a rep—and they close without shadowing the founder. You know which customers to say no to.

Scale It
Top Priority: Build the machine and expand capacity
You’re Ready to Move On When:
Your core playbook works. Now it’s about hiring, systems, and keeping it from breaking as you grow.
Example Behavior:
You add reps—and they hit quota. Ops dashboards go from “vibes” to accurate. The CEO isn’t the only one who can close. Team is focused and executing.

So where are you, really?

Not based on funding round. Not based on vibes. Based on truth.

This framework isn’t cute. It’s brutal. It calls the bluff.

It says: stop skipping the hard part.

Because every startup wants to scale.

But only the ones who build it and nail it actually earn the right.

I hope this can help you find some clarity.

Your feedback is welcome!

Mark Josephson

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