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But when they went full-time on the venture in 2018, the founders were reluctant to seek investment or external funding because there were so many unknowns on the table.
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"You'd have expectations from investors that you don’t have if you’re bootstrapped," Szental says.
One option early on was for the company, which turned over more than $1 million last year, to take out a loan from a bank.
Borrowing up to $200,000 could allow the co-founders to bulk-buy hearing aid products and get a discount for doing so.
But Szental says in the current climate, discussions with bankers show it isn't feasible to get an appropriate loan deal.
"We haven’t been in business long enough, you can't do it if you've only been around 12 months," he said.
The business has also considered alternatives, including venture capital or a loan from a fintech, but Szental says in the current climate of tight lending and future unknowns, it's better to self-fund operations and aim for long-term growth.
Things might change in years to come, but for now the business is happy with its choice to avoid debt.
"We were a bit risk averse to taking [a loan]. We prefer to go a bit slower," he says.
Access to finance in spotlight in 2019
Hearing Choices is making these decisions against a backdrop of concerns small business lending will continue to tighten into 2019.
Independent banking expert Neil Slonim says it's clear smaller operators are going into this year deeply wary about how the banks will treat them.
Because many smaller operators use their homes as security against business loans, raised scrutiny on mortgages is playing on the minds of many business owners, Slonim says.
But there's also a broader perception that it takes a huge amount of effort to secure a loan from a bank, and this is turning many off from even trying.
"I think it's pretty clear that the perception [of effort required] is largely reality," Slonim says.
At the same time, alternative finance options are now worth $US1 billion in Australia alone.
KPMG's Asia Pacific Alternative Finance report, released in December, highlights Australia's alternative finance market has grown from $26.69 million in 2013 to $1.14 billion in 2017.
That report emerged three months after the Reserve Bank highlighted that access to finance for start-up companies from the banks was "very limited".
"Entrepreneurs report that banks are reluctant to provide them with advice on how to obtain finance. As a result, they find it difficult to compare lending products and determine the one that would suit them best," the RBA said in its September 2018 report on access to finance.
At the start of this week the Australian Financial Industry Association and the office of Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman Kate Carnell confirmed seven Australian fintechs are now compliant with the code of lending practice for non-bank lenders, which requires signatories to provide clear rate comparisons and and loan summaries.
Moula, OnDeck, Capify, GetCapital, Prospa, Spotcap and Lumi are currently compliant with the code.
Slonim says it's critical that smaller lenders come to the table on transparency this year, because they are the key alternative for funding in this climate.
"I’m hoping that the 'trust mark' [of the code] will come to mean something, and will become a measure of pride and respectability," he says.
"Over time, small business owners are starting to better understand how fintechs are different to the banks."
Emma is the small business reporter for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald based in Melbourne.