Criteria for Good Natto

So basically, I wanted to make natto at home that would be as good as the store bought packaged natto. So in order to meet this,

A) It had to have nice long silky threads
B) and have great flavor

At first this goal seemed simple as they were only two criteria to meet. In my mind, this would only take a few failed attempts until I reached natto nirvana. I could not have been more wrong. It was indeed a humbling journey as homemade natto took me into many branching paths with most of them leading to dead ends without any knowledge gained.