[te_chris]

This is bad advice, imo.

If they start a consulting business there's a much more stable path to revenue from day 0, if they follow your advice they'll spend all their savings and possibly be in the reeds for ages. All the while they'll still need the sales/bd talent.

[ultimatejs]

Ultimately it depends on the individual's scenario. Both sides are extremely challenging. Without more info, it's up to them to decide which best suits their situation. They're already thinking of going the consulting route, so I'm providing an argument for a different way so they can fully weigh as many possibilities as possible

So, the downside of consulting for one is that he's just going back to freelancing, just now with his buddy. But more importantly, the downside is simply that projects are always under-estimated, you'll grow your business ponzi-scheme style (new projects paying for old), eventually have more engineers, and be responsible for them, etc. Typical scene. They will have severely complicated their lives, whereas what a startup/product needs is simplicity and space to focus (i.e. not a plethora of projects distracting you and occupying more time than hoped). So it may very well be a long while before they truly create the space to do their own product whole-heartedly. I'm not saying it can't be done. They need to weigh whether they want to go through all that.

VERSUS:

a year from now (presumably after demanding a raise) taking 6-12 months off to work on their own product, and if it fails, simply going and getting another job (they'll be better engineers, and it will therefore be easier to get jobs).

At the end of the day, the biggest--and perhaps hidden--factor is whether you have kids. If you don't have kids (or people other than yourself to take care of), and you can't create this environment for yourself, you have other problems. But more than likely while at this stage of your life, you have options. So the trick is not to get yourself into trouble with large under-estimated projects for other people, and to do whatever it takes to create time for yourself and your own projects. That's the name of the game. That's what it's all about. I.e. keeping it simple. Don't get yourself into trouble with too many projects, projects that are too big, working for too much potential that doesn't pan out. Get short low responsibility projects, and make your #1 focus creating time for your own projects.

[tedmiston]

It's hard to call advice blanket good / bad when the decision is heavily dependent on an individual's end goal combined with their tolerance for risk and uncertainty. Different people need different advice.