Many mistakes were made. I'm sure Justin would counter that by the time the site needed a capital injection it's name and reputation were already such that he had no other real choices. I think the plan was to ride the original software license to the end and then sell out to a competitor or upstart. Of course the userbase proved so toxic that the site was never really worth anything in monetary terms. In retrospect it wasn't much of a business plan really was it? "I'll try and get all the users who've been thrown off Reddit and monetize them." At least our present surroundings has a donation and funding structure for the userbase to contribute. I'm quite sure the reason Justin/Putt has rejected all offers of donations and financial help is those funds would actually belong to the angel investor and not the site or Justin personally.