Shareholders sheet in the cap table

This is the 5th part of the Pro Cap Table training course. In this series we go through the basics you need to know, then worksheet by sheet so you know how to make a seriously kick-ass cap table.

Basic admin of a cap table

This is incredibly dull and hopefully what you wish an intern, lawyer, or pretty much anyone other than yourself has to deal with, but it matters.

The cap table is a list of who owns what.

Once a lot of people own something of your startup, things can become a mess when you need to get something done, such as get votes (which have rules!).

You will need their contact details such as email and address… but where is that stored if not in the cap table?

Starting out

At the start, if you raise $500 from a big dog you talk to every week, well you have one person to be emailing (aka reporting to).

You might not need to write the name of “Chris” in a cap table template, but why not start as you wish to end and do so?

Scaling up

Your cap table can become a total and utter dumpster fire over time if you end up with hundreds of stakeholders (it can happen).

Let’s image you are at series-D and you need each class of investor to vote on x (if you’re funny, tell me something funny to vote on here in the comments and I’ll replace it) and at this point, you have a lawyer dealing with, but they don’t have contact details and you can’t do that hilarious thing without it, well it won’t happen, right?

So boring shizzle matters. You need to record your stakeholders’ contact details in your cap table (mainly so when you are a big dog you don’t have to deal with details anymore!).

Why a shareholder sheet is key 4 kick ass cap table

You will have a look at this sheet and initially think “boring”, then “why is it needed?”.

Whilst this sheet is a doozy to fill in (sure, boring), it took me a week or two to “invent” to drive the cap table to make it easy to use and ensure errors didn’t happen. I am not joking. It takes tonnes of work to make things seem simple.

I knew it was important to keep track of who your investors are and I wanted to have a way for you to avoid f’n up the cap table by making tiny errors, so I came up with a way to make this boring sheet core to the cap table model.

This sheet is basically your cheat sheet to make sure that everything makes sense when you are inputting data into the sheets. Things can get confusing so you want a ledger to ensure everything makes sense (Feeling a blockchain vibe here).

The sheet has two uses:

1. List of names: I thought about how to make the model consistent. To do that I made a list where you add the names of each shareholder once, and then every sheet will pull the names into a drop-down menu. I’m an idiot proofing this. You HAVE to add each shareholder to the list ONCE
2. What to do where: Type in what you want to happen and where in the columns, then make sure you do! You use this like a to-do list

 

Here is the sheet:

1. The first column numbers each shareholder
2. Then you HAVE to add the name of the investor. This drives each sheet. It’s totally critical
3. Input the class of share the shareholder has such as common, RS or Series-A
4. When were the shares issued and when are they closed (i.e. firing staff)
5. What is the address? You only need this if you use this sheet to track where you mail letters to
6. What’s the email? To send updates to shareholders
7. Finally, you have notes which you use to make sure you update the other sheets properly. You use the notes to make sure things are perfect

 

If you can’t be bothered to fill this stuff out, you HAVE to add the names of staff or the model will not work.

There we go. Let’s get moving to the next episode.

Read next step

14 parts in this guide

You can jump to a section if you prefer:

1. What is a cap table and other important questions
2. Cap table dilution step-by-step example
3. Cap table dilution math
4. Starting the cap table (The drop-down menus we need)
5. Shareholders sheet
6. Deal calculations
7. The cap table sheet
8. The assumptions sheet
9. Individual shareholder returns sheet
10. Returns waterfall calculation
11. The ESOP sheet
12. The Common sheet
13. The convertible notes and warrants sheet
14. The preference shares sheets (From Series A to I)