was right in line with soapbox s philosophy. i would rather be in a company of company who want more of the pie and are willing to work for that. when stephanie decided to leave the company the owners bought her shares back. at what value? well, again, since they didn t formally value the company, they arbitrarily valued each share. something david cautions other entrepreneurs not to do. the most dramatic change was next. it completely came out of the blue. and it was devastating. eric announced his exit. i knew in my position as a co-founder, with the amount of equity i had, i needed to be all in. and i couldn t commit to that. in a pretty unusual move, he dave his shares back to the company. who gives away all their equity, like 9 largest piece tied with your co-founder of the company back for free? essentially for free. and while david could have become the majority owner, he didn t. he shared it with dan, instead. he is basically saying,
understands the power of equity. it is ownership. dan doll who co-owns soapbox soaps with david agrees. there s no physical currency given. there s no other way to value someone s time and effort. that s the only currency you have. but how to value a company and how to distribute equity are tough decisions with lots of layers. the owners of the alexandria,va based company have mastered bar soap, liquid hand soap and body wash and they have a social mission they were committed to. but when it came to dividing up the company, they learned as they ve grown. admittedly making some mistakes along the way. this is serious. it s real. these are real dollars. at the beginning, david and his cokounder eric decided to split the company 50/50. they wanted a level playing field for the vis. i think there s a herd mentality with entrepreneurship that someone needs to be in control. with soapbox we didn t want it to be. soon enough the pair needed help. that s where dan enters the