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Comment by smt88 | Hacker News Reader

This is the best response, but remember it's a response to getting caught. They didn't grow a conscience or replace leadership.

My company is still taking our business away from Carta, and I don't think anyone's plans should change because they repented after being caught. Things might be different if the CEO stepped down, but he hasn't yet.

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A quick search shows me a number of alternatives to Carta, but none that I have ever heard of or come across. Is there any competitor that is considered the second best? Carta just seems to me what everyone had been using without a second thought.

Pulley is what has been recommended in the past.

What about an excel sheet?

I have a competitive product and excel is a very valid option but if you want automation for anything like this, you really need something like us hit me up on DM if you want a demo

Just post a link and tell us why we should trust you. It's an appropriate time/place for you to self-premote imo.

Https://investorportalpro.com

HN doesn't have DMs, and you don't have any contact info in your profile. I agree about just posting a link though - self-promotion is okay if it's clearly relevant and up-front.

Once you get past a handful of grants, every Excel cap table I've seen has been an absolute disaster. Use a software product. Both Carta and Pulley offer free versions, until you exceed certain limits (e.g. for Carta Launch, until you exceed $1M raised or 25 stakeholders). If you are over those limits, even more reason to use a software product and not Excel.

As an early employee at a startup from seed through a healthy Series B last year, I would have serious concerns about the company’s bookkeeping and how-up-to-date the shareholder information is if it were kept in an excel spread sheet on Google drive.

Carta and Pulley, etc. do a solve a valuable concern here for non-executives who are compensated with stock options and want to keep track of stock vesting, exercises, and shares in a transparent way, I’d say.

Some VCs will withhold investment until you use a product like Carta or Pulley. Cap table in Excel carries major risk.

(And yes, Carta/Pulley are often portcos of those VCs pushing you to use them)

As a seed VC, I still see a majority of Excel cap tables over Carta. (Pulley / Shareworks is even rarer).

People in my network have recommended both Pulley and AngelList.

Carta > Pulley >>> AngelList.

This is largely a result of how long each product has been available, i.e. the older products are more mature. Hopefully Pulley and AngelList continue to catch up so there is a diversity of good options available.

Shareworks, Scwhab

I can recommend Ledgy

This is also the second shady article I've seen from carta this year.

https://sfstandard.com/2023/10/25/carta-san-francisco-lawsui...

Wow, this is bad.

Why do people work for such terribleness?

To pay rent

You make a good point. This is the best response despite it being in response to getting caught and them but showing any conscience or replacing leadership.

If you think about it if a company acts in a way that makes you no longer want anything to do with them, the best thing is a vague blog post bragging about how much money they make doing other stuff

Seconded. While this is a great move, they have yet to provide assurances that this sort of thing won't happen in the future. This blog post doesn't sufficiently serve as official policy for us.

And then oops we'll change our mind again in 6 months because it was only $3m/yr revenue we lopped off. Especially as investor interest grows with falling fed rates. By the way, to VCs who want to invest in Carta: look it's only $3m/yr, we're saving so much brand by doing this and it's not going to hurt our valuation at all. You should probably value us like an OpenAI, we're capturing the light cone of cap table info!

The only people who will ever be caught using Carta are fools, the unaware, or those who have no choice for some reason. You need a base level of trust and that’s gone.

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