When I ran my bootstrapped company, I had lots of equity and little money. I couldn’t get people interested in the equity. They didn’t understand it & they ce

When I ran my bootstrapped company, I had lots of equity and little money. I couldn’t get people interested in the equity. They didn’t understand it & they certainly didn’t want it. I certainly couldn’t afford to pay market rates. Two things worked for me. The first being I was hiring in 2010, and a lot of people where looking for meaningful opportunities that weren’t dead end minimum wage jobs. Honestly, this was probably the biggest factor. The second thing was I offered training, health insurance, and sold the vision of how working for me was a great way to break into the industry & better paying jobs, which was true. I told people up front that we’d charge clients $100/hour & pay them $20/hour. I let them work at home with flexible hours, didn’t demand any sort of loyalty, and I generally left them alone if they were getting the work done. This type of opportunity was quite appealing to people who were the job-primary income earners & they were looking for a chance to start a new career. Several people who worked for me went on to work in the field themselves, and I was happy for them.