Well I don’t know if this was intended (I doubt since it completely breaks the gameplay loop) but you can upgrade everything without any candies when you start. I just went to the factory and spammed upgrade without any candies and having only 2 guys in the beginning working and I was able to make 2000 candies almost immediately and beat the game. So saying that in the comments a bit too soon could have ruined the fun for those who might not have noticed.