You should probably take what I write with a grain of salt, because I have seen so much stuff go wrong over the time, I tend to be overly cautious. My (admitte

You should probably take what I write with a grain of salt, because I have seen so much stuff go wrong over the time, I tend to be overly cautious. My (admittedly somewhat unqualified) advice would be: - Go ahead and slash costs by as much as you can. And then some. If vendors simply defer payment instead of waiving/reducing it, things can get _very_ dangerous, so make sure you incorporate a limited liability company as a shield if you haven't already done so. And it wouldn't hurt to talk to some lawyers. - If your gut tells you not to partner up with this guy (and essentially give him your company in the process): don't do it! If it feels bad now, it will only get worse! Look for a real VC and/or possibly a bank deal. Maybe you can set up something with those partners who already operate in this space? - If you currently have no customers, maybe it's worth considering to hold off on buying these external services until you really need them. This may or may not be applicable to your situation, I don't know. But if the only reason for using these vendors right now is to give realistic demos and to have infrastructure in place just-in-case, it might be worth putting it on hold until you launch for real.