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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
