I am not an entrepreneur (I don't even play one on TV), but I've been in a fair few startups. The way I've seen it work is: You are dead in the water. In a m

I am not an entrepreneur (I don't even play one on TV), but I've been in a fair few startups. The way I've seen it work is: You are dead in the water. In a month you can't meet payroll. But you have revenue growth and potentially data to show that you will eventually break even. You need bridging financing. Go to your investors and ask for it. They may think that your growth potential is not enough. That's totally fair and is their choice. So what they are going to want to do at that point is write down the loss. So you aren't really hurting anybody by bankrupting the company. If you are intent on continuing beyond that point, make sure that you get agreement from all your investors that they don't mind. Likely they won't. If they do mind, press them for that bridging financing. They can't have it both ways. After you have washed yourself clean of the original investors, you may actually be lucky enough to find new investors for your new company. As long as the gap between the previous company and the new company is not too long, you might be able to keep your staff (but make sure to properly terminate them so that they have reasonable choices). The very first startup I worked in, the founders were miracle workers. They ran the company into the ground, eating up something like $20 million. Their investors gave up and wrote off their loss and the founders found another $2 million from someone else. They ran that company into the ground. Then they got agreements from the staff to work at a new company doing similar work (a complete rewrite!) for a cut in the action (something like $100k each as a signing bonus). I think they got $10 million for that. They ran that company in the ground, but by that time had such an impressive reputation for raising money that they could easily get money for new startups. It sounds insane that you could run the same company into the ground 3 times (spending tens of millions of dollars... much of it as their own salaries) and come away with a good reputation. But remember that as an entrepreneur you are as much of a product as your company. As long as you are seen as a mover and shaker and as long as it looks like you are taking appropriate risks, you will simply just make yourself look good by keeping the deals rolling. But of course, whatever you do, make sure you have a good lawyer. Pay special attention to what they say because it is incredibly important to get the legal side of it right. Good luck!