The preceding viewpoint presumes that the goal is to grow and to grow fast. As was suggested earlier, however, growth has its good side and its bad side. Firms can encounter severe, if not fatal, consequences from growing too fast. De Wayne Eidson, the founder of AvLink (an airplane leasing company), lost sight of that fact during the company's early years and took the firm beyond its capacity to finance growth. The result was company failure and personal bankruptcy for Eidson. In talking about the experience, Eidson, who had previously founded four successful companies, says, "I committed the cardinal sin. I knew not to do it, but just got caught up in trying to grow the company and forgot to watch the cash flows." Thus, a startup must be careful to avoid increasing sales when (1) the cash flows are inadequate to finance the growth and (2) the profits associated with the sales are not sufficient to provide an attractive return on the capital invested an issue we will discuss more completely in Chapters 8 and 23.