The difference between a business and a social club is making payroll. Your organization has not become a business until it does so; as soon as it fails to make

The difference between a business and a social club is making payroll. Your organization has not become a business until it does so; as soon as it fails to make payroll, it is an ex-business. This applies even to a one-person operation, where the rule is called "Pay Yourself First". If you have to invest your own cash to pay your living expenses, then do so up front, in a planned, structured amount, get equity for it, and pay your salary out of that fund. If you aren't paying yourself or getting paid, you aren't working at a failed business, you're unemployed at a non-business. This makes your decision to stay and restructure or bail a practical rather than emotional one: is making your own payroll until things might work out at all viable financially? Will it make you do things you don't want to, or can't afford to, do? This has nothing to do with not trusting your family; I grew up with parents who ran their own business, and religiously maintained separate business and family accounts, paying themselves (and later, me and other non-family employees) salaries. I've seen the results of small partnerships and family businesses that didn't do this; it isn't pretty even when it works.