This Founder Thought He'd Discovered a Valuable Moon Rock. The Object Was Actually Worthless, But It Still Brought Him Immense Success. For entrepreneur Eric Lapp, founder of The Raleigh House, a cheap piece of iron slag was the key to his company's successful launch.

"Every growing company has one thing in common," a CPA said in the earlier stages of my startup career. "They perpetually need about $100,000 more than they have."

I laughed, knowingly. But in every startup I've been part of or have advised as a PR practitioner, the tongue-in-cheek remark has been true. In two of my partnerships, it even proved to be the ultimate deal-breaker, as my cofounder in each case attemped to take over as leader, with me in the role of perpetual-billable-hours-machine to fill in the gap.

Thankfully, I've learned better in the years since, and I've made a conscious effort to avoid inflicting this kind of "shortfall" job description or thinking on others. So how do you surmount the inevitable growth-stage shortage?

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