if you can pull it off, sure, that's great. the problem is that it's /really/ easy to get yourself into the kind of trouble you don't recover from that way. I

if you can pull it off, sure, that's great. the problem is that it's /really/ easy to get yourself into the kind of trouble you don't recover from that way. I understand that different markets are different, but in every business I've run, the limiting factor was my commitment or my reputation (sales) or some combination therof. If I over promise a little, I can deliver for a limited time (as the OP did) at the risk of burnout. It sounds like burnout was a huge factor in the failure of the business this story is about. Burnout of key people can very easily kill a small company. If I over promise a lot and fail, then we start taking hits to the reputation, and if I've accepted pre-payment that I can't pay back, well, at that point it's pretty much over. so yeah, while it can result in dramatically positive outcomes, it's a /very/ high risk move.