Of course there is an available option - simply shut it down. If you aren't really certain of success, then causing friends&family to invest and lose money is

Of course there is an available option - simply shut it down. If you aren't really certain of success, then causing friends&family to invest and lose money is much worse than shutting down, that's outright evil. There's nothing inherently good or valuable in the survival of a business - your business surviving is good if and only if it is a valuable, profitable business, and if it is not, then it's wasteful to throw good money (especially good money of people who trust you) after bad. And burning all your personal relationships by acting in this untrustworthy manner to your friends&family has worse long-term consequences than burning a startup.