I don't find it a cop-out at all. A massive sales opportunity came up that could potentially allow them to bootstrap the service without further investment, or

I don't find it a cop-out at all. A massive sales opportunity came up that could potentially allow them to bootstrap the service without further investment, or investment on better terms based on the increased revenue and growth from the sale. By the time they realized the sales opportunity wasn't going through the investors that were interested had gotten pushed back without reasonable growth to back up the push-back, and uncertainty of the major deal going through, which means the investors would have wanted more for their money then they wanted before. The situation would have then spiraled out more and more as time went on. Such is why strategy and execution of these types of decisions is key for a startup to succeed.