> Everyone in Silicon Valley uses equity, and not debt, to fuel their growth because debt is not available in sufficient quantities to poorly capitalized companies without a strong history of adequate cash flows to service debt.

A corollary to this is that if you're fundraising and can get debt, you should take it over equity almost every time. Many founders are skeptical of debt because everyone takes equity, yet everyone takes equity because it's all they can get.

At the very least, if you're seriously trying to decide between the two, remember that equity investors want at least a 10x return within about five years. Break out a calculator and look at what the interest rate on that would be (spoilers, it's higher than any lender would think to ask).