Large amounts of debt (student loans) and lack of access to capital. I have several friends who have started their own business, which turns out to be "consult

Large amounts of debt (student loans) and lack of access to capital. I have several friends who have started their own business, which turns out to be "consulting to pay the bills and trying to balance the remaining 20% of time towards new-product development and finding more consulting clients". They are all but doomed from the start because the leftover scraps of time between consulting gigs is not sufficient to really create a viable product or business. If they could raise a half million and give it a serious go, their chances would increase substantially. Of course it's not a sure thing, but a) neither is it with most of the startups that raise a seed round, and b) failure without seed money doesn't mean "aw shucks, it didn't work out, I'll try again in a couple years", it means their personal finances and credit have been decimated and now they can spend the next N years clawing their way back to zero (remember the student loans they still have).