98- “Your equity is more valuable than anything, don’t raise, use debt” “Your equity is worthless, until proven otherwise” Both common pieces of advice when growing a business. In the event of an exit, your equity is how you win. That’s your payday. In any other case, your equity is worthless until you do a distribution/dividend On the other hand, debt is the only way you go bankrupt. Owning someone money, that you don’t have, but they want, is what kills businesses. This is a classic case of “it depends” 100% of zero is zero. Not selling equity, and instead running your business off debt can lead to smaller outcomes, or no outcome. On the flip side, selling equity sucks. You can lose control of your business, you could end up being pushed to do things you don’t want, and worst case, you raise money with strings, and end up selling for $$$ but getting nothing. The tip here is: Million ways to play this game. Million ways to win. Blanket advice like “never raise” or “go do a round” is misguided. Understand that most equity, 99% of all privately held shares, end up worthless. And understand that debt is the only thing that can kill you. I have seen great founders get great outcomes doing both