Your advice is way too binary. Cash flow crunches happen all the time in bootstrapped startups. First thing is to cut costs because you can do that quickly. 1

Your advice is way too binary. Cash flow crunches happen all the time in bootstrapped startups. First thing is to cut costs because you can do that quickly. 1.) Cut/defer all discretionary costs. 2.) Founder salaries go to zero. They signed up for it. 3.) Defer sales commissions, e.g., don't pay until the company gets paid. 4.) Defer payments to vendors. If it's 15 days net pay in 60. Our customers do this all the time. 5.) Last of all lay off staff. If you can avoid this step it makes your bounce-back way faster. Do all of this before you need to. At the same time go after your marketing strategy. Downturns like what we are seeing now also represent opportunities for companies that can reposition to save users costs. Payoff for this will be longer term. Finally...It's a bit late to point this out, but it's dumb not to setup a credit line when times are good so you can get through cash flow crunches. I would shoot for something that gives you 6 months runway if you can get it.