[jswinghammer]

I guess the answer is maybe. One person non-software businesses run into all kinds of scaling problems that sellers ran into trying the quit your day job thing. I'm not sure the quit your day job is the right approach for most sellers. After reading the book E-Myth I realized that every Etsy seller should read it immediately if only to realize that they'd be better off doing something else. It seems like it's a good way to make some extra money if you make something nice. There's nothing wrong with that approach but it's less exciting than quiting your job to make cool things to sell on the internet. The people I've met who sell their crafts on Etsy typically have no money to do anything fun and no time to do it anyway.

I think the basic problem is that by taking all that money the expectations are far different. If they had bootstrapped then they'd be looking at a great business that could grow organically without the pressure to big a billion dollar business. It seems like (to put it in Joel Spolsky's framework) they are a Ben & Jerry's business playing with an Amazon model.