Cash is king: why does everything always cost more than we have? Part II in a series on the startup challenges of Wiesner Publishing.

• Author: Wiesner, Pat

In our household, as our six kids were growing up, occasion ally money would get thin. Either my wife or I would extend our arms, palms up--the universal sign for being out of money--and say, "Where did it all go, Blanch?" referring to some comedian somewhere who used the line incessantly.

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Then we would both chuckle and sit down to figure out what we were going to do.

Point: In family financing as well as in business, the job to be done will always expand beyond the money available to do it. Either you do something different or get more money.

Also in our household, over the years a certain country song has provided a needed laugh from time to time and also some comfort in a time of stress. The song was, "If we make it through December!" The idea was that things were always going to get better.

Point: In family affairs or business, we always think that given a little time, things will get better. But if you don't change something, it won't happen.

Wiesner Publishing started with three guys who had good publishing experience but little money: Phil Cook (a great salesman), Jim Fahnestock (a great technical guy) and myself. We started with probably $3,000 or $4,000 plus the ability to pay some out-of-pocket office expenses and travel expenses. I gave 15 percent shares of the company each to Jim and Phil, and I had 70 percent. Our shares were worth exactly nothing.

Our first real success was "Mobile Radio Technology." It was a group effort, but it was really Jim's idea to start a technical magazine in a market where there wasn't one. It also gave us a taste of what the money needs of a business really were.

MRT was a great idea. We sold $90,000 advertising in the first issue. Very profitable. It was the third issue we had published; the first two were other magazines, and we had paid cash for them so the printer didn't make us pay up front for MRT. We had some time, probably until we wanted to print the next one, to pay the printer.

But then everyone else wanted to be paid: the artists, the writers, the couple of people we had hired in the office, the post office (cash on...