What prompted you to write "So You Built It and They Didn't Come. Now What?"

After 15 years of working with Emerging Technologies, the roads to success were pretty clear. But few ever go down those roads, first. It's easy to get lost when caught up in the passion and the fervor of building a potentially disruptive technology.

I'd watched many companies make the exact same mistakes. It got to the point where I wished I could find a company in that "Now What" moment that had made a different mistake just so I could learn something new.

So I started writing this book for those CEO's who were clearly looking for these answers.

And it's also for the people whose lives can be forever changed by the products Entrepreneurs are building, like Nanotechnologies. It's also for the employees whose families put so much on the line so they can be a part of this fascinating space we call Innovation.

As an entrepreneur, what traits do you think are vital to have in order to weather the ups and downs of running a business and being able to react quickly, and intelligently, to changes in customer preferences, market conditions, and competitor's moves?

The single most important trait is what I call "Darwinian Survivability".

While in 2006 being in Security looks like a slam-dunk success, back in 1999 when I started, nobody wanted it. It was something the IT guys shut off to get the network to run faster. Then the Dot Bomb hit followed by the recession, the Gulf War, 9/11.... Then the competition from established incumbents like Cisco and Checkpoint became fierce. When a disruptive technology company actually hits, it's exactly like traversing the rapids.

You need to be decisive with as much data as you have at the time and rather quickly-even when you don't have as clear a picture of what's around the corner as you'd like.  Just be prepared to course-correct quickly too when the data changes.

The only entrepreneurs that ever fail are the ones that quit. Winners stay no matter what the problems are. You need to own the problem, figure it out and fix it! You owe it to your family who's been right behind you and to your employees who are looking to you for leadership.

The guiding light for any CEO when things get really dark, is to go back to your customers directly and just listen. The answers are in the questions. What are they really saying they want?

Do you have any advice for the future entrepreneurs in our audience that you wish you had heard when you started out?

When it came to some of those impossibly ambiguous choices I'd just ask myself; if I had to explain my choice to Professor Ed Marram tomorrow, would it seem right then? So always have a mentor to sanity check with.

Lastly, make sure you absolutely love what you're doing in your new venture. Or sell it and go do something else. My company has a niche working with CEO's to find shareholder value behind security. I love the work and it's quite financially rewarding since it requires a specialized skillset. But there's a core mission behind the work that really drives me.