Set your cap table up right from day one.
You've incorporated (or you're about to). You're issuing founder stock, filing 83(b)s, maybe taking a friends-and-family SAFE. Get all of this on rails before it becomes a Series A diligence problem.
What hurts at this stage
Founder stock is a one-shot at incorporation
Wrong founder splits, missed 83(b) filings, or no vesting schedule - these get baked in and become enormous to fix later. The first 90 days are when the cap table is most malleable.
Spreadsheets break by Series A
Most pre-seed teams start in Google Sheets. That works until your first SAFE round, when you realize you need to model conversions, track signatures, and explain ownership to investors who don't read spreadsheets.
Legacy cap table software can be overkill
Legacy pricing and enterprise workflows can make sense later. At pre-seed, founders usually need clean setup, SAFE tracking, signatures, and investor-ready exports without buying a larger back-office stack.
What Slyced does for pre-seed teams
Free founder share calculator
Decide co-founder splits and total authorized shares before incorporation.
83(b) election helper + letter template
30-day countdown timer + a ready-to-mail letter, plus tax math comparing file-vs-don't.
SAFE conversion modeling
Take SAFEs without flying blind on how they'll dilute you at your next priced round.
Free tier: full platform up to 25 stakeholders
The free tier isn't a stripped-down trial. Full data room, e-signatures, fundraising CRM, scenarios - until you cross 25 stakeholders, you pay $0.
Full platform, up to 25 stakeholders. Most pre-seed teams stay free through their seed round. Upgrade when you outgrow it, not before.
Pre-seed founder questions
- We haven't incorporated yet. Should we sign up now?
- You can - but the most valuable thing pre-incorporation is the free calculator suite. Use /calculators/equity-split to settle the co-founder split, /calculators/founder-shares for total authorized shares, and /calculators/83b-election to plan the filing. Once you incorporate, sign up and import your cap table from day one.
- Do we need 4-year vesting at this stage?
- Yes. Even before any outside investor, put founders on a 4-year vest with a 1-year cliff. It protects against the most common pre-seed failure mode: a co-founder leaving in month 8 with 30% of the company forever. Slyced sets this up automatically when you import founder grants.
- What if we're not raising for 12+ months?
- Then you don't need a complex tool. But you do need: (1) an accurate cap table, (2) filed 83(b)s, (3) vesting schedules in place. Slyced's free tier covers all of that without forcing you to commit to a paid plan you don't need yet.