Unrecoverable? That might be one of the misconceptions right there. Even being dead broke and in debt to your eyeballs is "recoverable".
Most successful business owners I know have been broke multiple times. Their skill and attitude is that being broke doesn't matter, it just means the most recent business tactics were flawed and maybe they changed course too late.
What I have seen... Once... is tens of millions ****ed away and creditors taking over the Board and making sure they got the absolute best cash value out of a losing investment, than they possibly could have gotten prior to the Board change from "grow" to "sell".
400+ people instantly out of work the month after they took over, and maintenance of the business only (no growth) until a suitable buyer could be found for both the remaining capital assets and meager human assets.
The balance sheet rules the world in business. The founders who were no longer the majority owners could do absolutely nothing to stop the massacre. They waited three years for the sale and got their very small share back and started over, literally in the same market and same business, with numerous changes to their plan.
(As of this time, they're watching that one being eaten alive by a technology shift they didn't pay attention to, and are probably adjusting for, too late. But I don't think they'll fail, they just have a significantly smaller growth potential going forward and need to focus on their niche VERY hard to hold on to customers. I'm currently a customer and frankly, I'm leaving. I can't cost justify their product over a much larger company's offering on the long-term timeline.)
Not one here, but having talked directly to the guys who had that business adventure above, their new rule forevermore was never to allow investors to hold a majority position on the Board of Directors of any of their businesses ever again.
No matter how bad they want to grow fast, they'd never let the dangling carrot of massive capital suck them into giving up ultimate control of their own company, ever again. Lower growth with a majority of their own capital and assets on the line and not an investment bank or venture capital firm's money, is all they'll now accept as a reasonable way to operate their businesses.
Scaling this down to where you're at, the equivalent position would be not to use too much leverage to get started. If your bank owns your business and you don't have control of it, it's doomed to a short sale of one sort or another, eventually. Or you'll be replaced by someone the bank feels can grow the thing at a rate far higher than you can. The creditors always do everything in their power to get their money back plus interest and more if they can swing it. Don't forget that. If its operating on leverage, you don't own it. They do. You're just the caretaker of their asset.
Nope. Not able to be vacated by bankruptcy. Interestingly one of the only debts vacated by death, however. Your estate simply tells the lender that you're dead and they have no claim.
I wouldn't put them in forebearance to start a business either, but that's a risk you'd have to calculate for yourself.
All that said...
If you want a taste of what it's like to run your own business, start by making a ("peer reviewed"... chuckle...) business plan to carry multiple jobs where you're an employee, and hammer away all of your debt in three or four years. Make your life the business.
It's all "equity in yourself", either way...
Lower expenses (perhaps drastically), give yourself a "layoff" pink slip from allowing yourself any free time at all, until the debt is gone, make the balance sheet positive, etc etc etc.
All just business, really. Your personal balance sheet and business plan.
Adding a real business just adds a large asset (if you build it properly) and likely a smaller , but very large liability, to your personal balance sheet.
Business is very intolerant of "intangibles" early in the lifespan of a budding business. Time is money at that stage. Time off, "bennies", all that stuff you may or may not have had at an employer, all now on your head as the business owner.
It's one of the reasons I'm currently (and planning on being) an employee for a while longer. My personal balance sheet is very light on liabilities and they're paying me to do stuff to increase the asset side, while also paying for things most folks don't count as assets on their personal balance sheets.
THEY certainly have to account for those payments however, such as their contribution to my medical insurance. It's not an insignificant number they're paying.
Most employees don't pay that number any heed in their personal calculations, and get bit by those types of things when they start their own business.
Only other thing I'd caution about -- is who you consider "peers" -- in that business plan review. I wouldn't be looking for a "peer", I'd be looking for a mentor well beyond the same stage of business than I was at.
Most successful business owners are quite generous with their time but don't appreciate it being wasted.
Hammer that plan flat and know down to the penny where every dang one of them is coming from and going to, before asking them to review it. You shouldn't even have to refer to it to answer questions about it. Be prepared to answer with hard numbers and dates and deadlines. Not wishy-washy "maybe in a year or two" types of answers.
And be cautious about "entrepreneur" seminars and such. The general comment on those is you're going to meet a lot more people at one of those wishing they knew what they were doing than successful people with no agenda other than to assist new business owners. And a lot of salesmen looking for their next sucker.
BUT... You do need to know the lingo. And there's a lot of it. Examples, depending on where you are at on the business knowledge curve might be something like:
- What does "EBITDA-positive" mean?
- What is a DUNS number and why might I need one?
- What does "cash-flow" mean, and how does it differ from "capital", "leverage", and "profit"?
- What types of Corporations exist and why is my business targeting incorporation as a particular type (or not)?
Etc etc etc. You do need to know how to talk the talk to communicate effectively with mentors or write that business plan.
That's all I've got. Wish you well. I truly believe there's a LOT of opportunity out there to be had, and that it takes a lot of hours and a lot of work to attain it, most of the time.
Make sure you really like knowing every single good and bad detail about things, and don't mind having a lot of things thrown at you that you simply won't have the answer for, but need to deal with them right NOW, or they'll drive you insane quickly. "Hey boss, we heard a big bang on the roof and it's 85F in here and getting warmer, "just to let you know".
You ready to toss finding a good HVAC company and coordinating getting them up on the roof to look at what went bang, into your already overworked day? Maybe the day before your largest customer is stopping by for a visit?
An hour later when they accidentally cut the phone line to the building fire alarm system required for building occupancy, are you going to cry, or find someone who knows how to fix it and get it back online before you start having to pay an off-duty firefighter overtime to stand in your building with a clipboard on "fire watch" duty at $90/hr 24/7?
"Hey, the power just went out and the generator failed to start. It says "low oil pressure" and the batteries die in 20 minutes. You want me to push the manual override and try to start the $2M generator anyway, boss?"
"Did you notice the huge water leak coming from the ceiling in the server room?"
Just examples of insanity I've seen.
Do you thrive on that kind of natural chaos or become drained by it? Out of all the successful business owners I know that's probably the most important question I can think to ask. They all thrive in chaos and don't G-LOC when it occurs. They shuffle the schedule, make decisions, and keep moving.
Mind you this was a plant that sits in front of a few million birds and has to run every day. No exceptions. 
