Being Stingy With Your Equity

It can be tempting to offer shares in your company to finance its growth. These days, there are plenty of investors chasing promising new companies and, in today’s tight labour market, employees are getting more brazen in their demands for equity-based compensation. However, using equity as a form of currency dilutes your position and may not be necessary with a pinch of creativity.

How David Hauser Bootstrapped His Way To a 9-Figure Exit

David Hauser has been an entrepreneur for most of his life. He had a number of small money-making ventures in high school and studied entrepreneurship at Babson College. He started a web design business after graduation, followed by an internet advertising company.

Through his early experiences in entrepreneurship, Hauser discovered that one of the most frustrating parts of starting and growing a small business was acquiring a phone system. Back in the late 1990’s, big companies used a PBX system to route calls throughout a switchboard, but a PBX system was prohibitively expensive for most small companies to acquire and maintain.

Hauser and his friend Siamak Taghaddos imagined a “virtual PBX” which allowed small business owners to leverage the internet to create a phone system without having to buy any of the hardware. They built a crude version of the technology, named their new…