LTSE Equity

Name: LTSE Equity
Rating: 5.0 (9 reviews)

Plan, manage, and collaborate on startup equity.

5.0•9 reviews•

616 followers

Plan, manage, and collaborate on startup equity.

5.0•9 reviews•

616 followers

Team collaboration software

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Financial planning

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Startup financial planning

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Fundraising resources

LTSE Equity enables easy cap table creation and management, transparent ownership tracking for all stockholders, 409A valuations, stock plan management, and powerful round and exit modeling. Companies own and control their data.

Free Options

Launch tags:Fintech•Venture Capital•Fundraising

Launch Team

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Promoted

This might be the first "launch" on ProductHunt, but captable.io has been around for 10+ years and LTSE has been around for several years. I've used the cap table management features of LTSE for years. Here is my review: I started with the free captable.io service. It was was basically a lame CRUD (create, read, update, delete) web app with a confusing UX (user experience). But it was free, created and used by some well known founders and, with some struggles, I could accomplish basic cap table management. Because it was popular, my hope was that investors, auditors and others would understand it. Unfortunately, this has not been the case. Not a single investor ever logged in to my LTSE account. Investors and auditors do not understand the confusing export files any better than I did, so I don't think my confusion is due to lack of experience. Basically, the database schema is as terrible as the UX and, after 10 years, it still doesn't offer basic functionality a startup founder needs. A few years back, I was told that my free startup captable.io plan was no longer available and I had to pay. They asked a ridiculous amount. We eventually settled on $100/month. The web app is basically the same MVP from over 10 years ago. I was hoping they would improve it. I was hoping they would become an SEC registered transfer agent (which I think is the natural path for this space). A few years of paid service later and none of that has happened. Even as a free service, I'm not sure LTSE is worth it. You are going to confuse your stakeholders, waste a lot of time trying to accomplish simple things and there doesn't seem to be hope for real improvement. This year, I moved my main cap table back to Excel. With Excel, my investors can't login and check their status, but they never did anyway. My Excel sheet seems to be much more understandable to my investors and auditors, despite being created by a non-finserv expert. The only thing I still use LTSE for is keeping track of employee stock grants and revocations. Even this LTSE feature is lame and basically stuck at 10 year old web app MVP level of functionality. My review of the LTSE stock exchange concept: Like captable.io, it sounds great, but years after launch, nothing substantial has been accomplished. Don't get me wrong, I love @ericries and The Lean Startup. I recommend the book to founders frequently. LTSE is more of a lesson about what happens when people talk a great game, but don't actually DO enough (yet somehow have enough funding to survive).

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@pj_tezza thank you for sharing your feedback. I’m sorry your experience hasn’t been better. we’ve been working very hard to help standardize cap table schema across the entire industry (as there were no standards before but a bunch of interpretations by various platforms like ours), create a portable open sourced format, and fully enable support for it. when it comes to workflows for maintaining cap tables, there are no hard set rules and we've been balancing building (rigid) workflows with allowing more direct data entry for record keeping - I'm sorry this hasn't lived up to your expectations

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3yr ago

@tihomirb thanks for the reply. Frankly, this response goes right along the lines with the rest of my feedback... all talk and not much accomplishment. How long does it take to write a program that iterates through an existing dataset and outputs a standardized format that should be clearly documented? I've written this kind of program many times. My team could program that in an afternoon. Let's call it two days, so we get unit tests and deployment. Is this standardized format really something founders are asking for? I've never been asked my opinion about priorities. It would not even make my top 10 requests and I am a founder, user and paying customer. I say all this in the spirit of suggesting that you ask yourselves some hard questions. Here are my suggestions: 1) Fix your dev process so you can ship a new feature every day. This should be totally possible with a relatively simple web app like yours. 2) To be truly useful, the exported files must be easy to understand by investors, auditors and attorneys. The Stock view, sorted by class is what most people expect. 3) The Cap Table Overview is confusing. The Ownership view is greatly improved recently, congrats! 4) IMO, there is a many to many relationship between Classes and Offerings that many of us use that isn't easy to model (I have multiple offerings for our Class B stock, for example). Maybe that is just me. 5) The Grant ID numbers generated should be more consistent. Because I've been a customer for a long time, I have a jumble of ID number schemes for basically the same type of grants. Maybe make this configurable with reasonable defaults. 6) Generating a historical view for auditors (or investors) should be a standard feature, not some mystical enterprise upgrade. 7) LTSE should become a SEC registered transfer agent. There is no reason not to have this feature.

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@pj_tezza thank you for taking time to provide this specific product feedback

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3yr ago

The 409A process is faster than I’ve ever experienced before and it’s the first cap table software that’s not intimidating to make changes. Nice work on such a fundamental tool for owning a startup and avoiding costly mistakes!

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@doug_fulop is there a costly mistake you managed to avoid or wish in hindsight you've done differently

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3yr ago

LTSE user here. Finally a cap table management solution that is built for startups of every size. With LTSE, we have a robust yet simple to use suite of tools that enables us to have superior features at a fraction of the price other services charge.

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@claudio_alvarez1 thank you for trusting us with your startup cap table

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3yr ago

SocialBu

Congratulations on launching LTSE Equity! It sounds like a great tool to simplify the often complicated process of managing equity. Let's discuss the features and benefits of your product!

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@usamaejaz thank you. Would love to hear your thought about interacting with our fully featured public demo - https://equity.ltse.com/demo - what stands out to you?

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity is an interesting product that provides a new way for startups to offer equity compensation to their employees. I like that it's designed to be more flexible and accessible than traditional equity compensation plans, which can often be complex and difficult to understand. The ability to offer equity through LTSE Equity's platform can also help startups attract and retain top talent, which is crucial for their success. Another standout feature is the ability for employees to cash out their equity at any time, which can provide a valuable source of liquidity for those who may not have access to other investment options. Overall, I think LTSE Equity has a lot of potential to be a helpful tool for startups and their employees, and I'm excited to see how it evolves over time.

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@gram_ben really glad you're highlighting the importance of equity compensation

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3yr ago

Our team at Orgnostic has been an early adopter of both LTSE Equity and LTSE's services arm, and the work with the team has made a massive difference for us during our fundraising process. Managing and sharing captable with stakeholders, issuing stocks, 409A process, and scenario planning for fundraising combined with support strategy services have been the features our exec leadership team has used the most. Big thanks @tihomirb, @ericries, and the team, for all the hard work on providing these functionalities within the LTSE ecosystem.

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@luka_babic thank you for trusting us with your fundraising process and cap table management. if you're preparing to fundraise this year, is there a feature you like using or would like us to add?

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3yr ago

@tihomirb So many thoughtful, game changing features. Picking up on your mention of “various financing options available to fund the startup and tradeoffs” — there is such a big gap around umderstanding this on both company and investor side. Would be great if you could elaborate on this point sometime in a blog, etc. (and @ K>23).

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3yr ago

LTSE Equity

Maker

@maja_a working on a simple high-level guide for this and we'll publish it along with some supporting resources (great idea about writing a longer blog post about this)

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3yr ago

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5.0

Based on 9 reviews

Review LTSE Equity?

LTSE Equity is highly praised for its simplicity and efficiency in managing cap tables, stock plans, and ownership tracking. Users appreciate its practical UI and comprehensive features, including 409A valuations and scenario modeling, which are particularly beneficial for startups. The platform's ability to provide complete data control and transparency is a standout feature. While there is a learning curve, the supportive customer service team helps ease the transition. Overall, LTSE Equity is recommended for its robust functionality and ease of use in equity management.

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