Excel Communications was founded in 1988 by Dallas entrepreneur Kenny Troutt as a long distance reseller in the US telecom sector at the birth of telecom deregulation. It began selling franchises using a multi-level marketing (MLM) business model, eventually selling over 200,000 of these franchises, or an average of 1 franchise for each 20 customers. In seven years, it became the fourth-largest long distance carrier in America and the youngest billion-dollar-annual company in history (8 years as compared to the second fastest growing, Microsoft, which took 15 years).