There is a reason why prudent business people do not sell everything they own and invest it in an unproven business (or, at this point, business idea) on the other side of the world in China.
Actually, stories like that are common, esp. in the Silicon Valley startup game. Quitting your day job, selling whatever possessions necessary, and hunkering down for 6 mos. to bring your vision to reality. Alot of these people go thru several failures before having a success. Surprisingly, they survive their failures. With great risks come great rewards.
The CEO of Quirky, who was originally the CEO of mophie, has a pretty amazing story - Essentially he was a highschool student with an idea. His parents supported him to the point where they mortgaged the house to supply him with $150k to manufacture lanyard headphones, he went to China to develop his idea... won best of show at MacWorld, $1.5M in venture funding, etc. At 23 he's a highly successful businessman on his 3rd company.
You can watch him explain it here -
http://www.quirky.com/home/about
I have a couple friends who essentially lived on very little income for years. People would let them crash at their places, girls would buy them meals, provide transportation, etc. They created a large supportive social network thru picking up girls on Myspace/Facebook, they wrote an ebook on it, and it became successful enough that they went on to become professional dating coaches, had a weekly show on Maxim radio, great loft paid for by the company in NYC. Now one lives in a posh 2 bedroom condo on the Vegas strip, 38th floor, with his own coaching business, and the other one is enrolled at Columbia. They're both almost 30, but for most of their 20s they bummed around on very little, and learned how to be great with people, traveled the world several times in the process.
If you're married with a family without a doubt there are things you need, responsibilities you have to attend to. But young and driven? It's amazing on what little you can get by with.
