It's hard to imagine when you're looking for that first pre-seed dollar, but the day may come when business really starts happening and, in fact, begins to grow rapidly. "A good problem to have," you say. Well, "yes and no." Poorly managed growth can kill your company just as surely as a wily competitor.

When I was teaching entrepreneurial management at Carnegie Mellon University, I stressed this subject because it's not often addressed. And in each lecture I credited a book called "Company Growth" by Eric Franholtz -- an excellent reference on this subject. So while I personally witnessed many companies that Franholtz is talking about, he deserves some credit for this column.

Mostly my columns deal with people who want to start a company. But now let's assume you've obtained capital, gotten sales and even achieved positive cash flow. Take out your cigar and puff a little bit -- you've done pretty well. But you're also, maybe, at a dangerous stage, a fork in the road. You may soon be saying, "I've got more business than I know what to do with."

And this is not a hollow plea. As you get more business, you need more inventory, more equipment, more space, more people and more money. Most of all, more management is needed. And a different kind of management. No more sitting around on Fridays with your partners and five or six early hires, feet propped up on the desk, kicking around what you plan to do next.

I've seen companies that couldn't keep up with their own growth falter and die. Growing companies need different kinds of people, and that has to start with an honest assessment of the founder, which may be the hardest person of all to change.

After all, entrepreneurs are typically above average in intelligence, they embrace risk, and they like having things done their way. Many of us have poor listening skills. We are accustomed to being the dominant person in a business situation. We want, we love and maybe we even need to be in control. Internally, we are thinking: There is no one who can run this company as well as I can. The founder, in essence, has become the bottleneck to further growth.

My mantra has always been: "grow or die." And I've seen founders choke companies to death. To grow, a company needs experienced management and different kinds of financial controls. It needs strategic plans in order to build, sustain and increase growth. An updated sales plan becomes a must. Professional advisers in legal, accounting, recruitment and public relations and a strong board of directors are necessary. Obviously, capital is vital and, without the above controls, is unlikely to keep coming.

Money aside, all these new demands can tax the ability of the people and processes already in place. Growth requires the marketing department to come up with new brochures and clever campaigns -- as more prospect calls come in, pressure increases on the sales people to follow up. The service department feels the pressure because people might have complaints and need someone to talk to. The accounting department has more invoices to send out than they can handle and accounts receivable begin to slip. And at each growth spurt, these problems keep getting bigger.

So how do you know when you need help? Here are some key clues:

* You find your company going from crisis to crisis.

* There is no time to plan.

* Turf wars break out.

* You find yourself continually putting out fires

* Meetings become lengthy and confused. They meander.

* Profits fail to keep pace with sales -- that's a major red flag. If that's by design because you're doing additional research and development, that's OK. But more often it means the company is wasting money.