Your comment on utilization is spot-on, there are no two ways about it, and everyone should pay very close attention to this.
Even if you're truly solo, you will need ~20% for sales, account management, accounting, and residual business management tasks. If you're at 100% utilization either you are neglecting these areas and hurting yourself in a much shorter term than you'd think, or you're working 6 days a week, which means you're not really at 100% utilization.
Regarding paying customers, I agree with the sentiment, but probably not with the detail. I've worked with a few Fortune 500 companies and their payment terms are 30-90 days. On the other hand advances are very commonly accepted and I've never had any pushback. I go for 50% and could possibly push higher. It still doesn't create entirely positive cash cycles but it's decent.
Even if you're truly solo, you will need ~20% for sales, account management, accounting, and residual business management tasks. If you're at 100% utilization either you are neglecting these areas and hurting yourself in a much shorter term than you'd think, or you're working 6 days a week, which means you're not really at 100% utilization.
Regarding paying customers, I agree with the sentiment, but probably not with the detail. I've worked with a few Fortune 500 companies and their payment terms are 30-90 days. On the other hand advances are very commonly accepted and I've never had any pushback. I go for 50% and could possibly push higher. It still doesn't create entirely positive cash cycles but it's decent.