Good post. Yeah I wouldn't do this unless two things were both true: 1) The person could afford to do without the money for quite some time, 2) I was pretty sure it would succeed.

It's awfully hard to gauge #2 when it's your idea and you've got yourself emotionally wrapped up in it.

I'm beginning to think there's an entire class of startup funding that needs to be written about a bit more--spouse support. If you're married and your spouse can earn enough money to pay for the household for a discrete amount of time then that's perhaps the greatest bootstrapping source imaginable. Seems like a few of us here (from other posts I've seen) are considering this.