Jeff Wilson spent one of his two years as dean of Huston-Tillotson University in Texas living in a dumpster.

The experience made him embrace minimalist living, and inspired him to launch a tiny home startup, called Kasita, in 2015.

"While the experiment was extreme, the experience I gained by living small and simple made a big impression," said Wilson, who is a former postdoctoral researcher at Harvard and IBM project manager. "At the end of the year, I left the dumpster with the concept for a new category of housing — a beautiful, small footprint home designed as a solution for the growing housing crisis."

Based in Austin, Texas, Kasita offers housing units that can sit by themselves or stack to form apartments. The pre-fabricated homes can be assembled off-site and delivered in two to three weeks, Wilson says.

In 2017, the startup started selling its first tiny homes, which measure 352 square feet and cost $139,000. A newer iteration of the home — which features additional storage — was shown at this year's SXSW festival in Austin, Texas. The latest Kasita homes are now on sale for the same price.

Check out the newest units below.