Learn how The Feed, a venture-backed e-commerce marketplace for athletes, uses LTSE Equity to stop relying on external equity managers and save significant cash on their cap table. 

“To manage our equity, we were looking for something in-house and affordable. It just so happened that LTSE Equity fell into our laps and has worked so well. We're really happy with this tool and its team.”

- Heidi Huntington, Chief Financial Officer at The Feed’s review of LTSE Equity.

What is The Feed?

For the last decade, The Feed has provided athletes with everything they need to enhance their next workout, from nutrition to supplements to recovery gear. The venture-backed e-commerce marketplace curates tried-and-true products across 150+ of the top nutrition brands. In 2021, the company officially incorporated in Delaware and raised significant venture capital. With this growth came a substantial stock option pool and seemingly endless stock certificates to issue. 

The equity challenges

Relying on external attorneys for equity management is costly and inefficient

Before they discovered LTSE Equity, the team at The Feed struggled with two common challenges founders face with equity management: cost and control.

Cost — attorneys can charge anywhere from $200 to $400 per hour (if not more) for managing your cap table. With the number of stock certificates they had to issue, those projected legal fees were an instant turn-off. Plus, the software provider they were initially considering, had grown increasingly pricey during talks, with monthly costs coming out to several thousands of dollars. 

Control — relying on a third party like a law firm to manage your equity can be wildly inefficient. For instance, issuing a single stock certificate or answering an employee’s question about their options means delayed communications (lengthy email chains) and constantly waiting on confirmation. Even more, Heidi Huntington, CFO at The Feed, frequently found herself worrying about manual errors from their lawyers. “It’s about speed and knowing we can trust the data,” she explains. 

Overall, Heidi and her team needed a solution that would both minimize costs and enable them to maintain control of their cap table management. 

“​​It’s almost silly how much attorneys charge you to manage cap tables, so we wanted a solution that would let us manage things ourselves. We’re also a fast-paced company that likes to get things done immediately and keep control and visibility over everything.”

- Heidi Huntington, Chief Financial Officer at The Feed’s review of LTSE Equity.

The solution

01 - Minimize costs: LTSE Equity is cost-efficient 

After discovering LTSE Equity, The Feed scheduled a demo and was impressed by the intuitive, all-in-one platform for equity management — as well as “very inexpensive” and transparent pricing. 

Across the board, LTSE Equity is more cost-efficient than hiring a law firm or turning to competing software options. While competing platforms regularly charge in the thousands per month, LTSE Equity costs only a few hundred. It was built for founders, by founders, and that comes through in the pricing. 

02 - Retain control: Manage your own equity efficiently and independently

During onboarding, LTSE Equity consistently collaborated with The Feed, configuring their platform and ensuring every detail aligned with the company’s charter, legal documents, etc. 

From there, LTSE’s equity management software is intuitively designed and easy-to-use, enabling faster and more reliable results compared to working with attorneys. Heidi also compares LTSE Equity to competing options, which have “layered on so much complexity” that it can be tricky for even growth-stage teams to figure out. 

It didn’t take long for The Feed to benefit from this new control and access. At the start of 2023, the company closed its Series B using a self-managed cap table from LTSE Equity as the basis for their pro forma, which their attorneys and investors used to close the deal later on. On the other end, employees of The Feed can easily access LTSE Equity to track their stock — no assistance from lawyers necessary. 

03 - Drive best practices: Expert-level consultative services

As an added bonus, Heidi and her team have been able to collaborate with LTSE Equity’s subject matter experts and consultants on best practices for everything from equity management and employee options pools to fundraising and governance. LTSE Equity offers The Feed the ability to fully own their cap table, while access to founder-friendly experts gives them the ability to do it well. 

Heidi admits that without LTSE Equity’s built-in expertise, she would have been lost on topics such as essential documentation for stockholder profiles, global options when awarding equity to employees abroad, or what paperwork to request from attorneys. 

“Managing your own cap table is not for the faint of heart. There are so many additional complex steps and documents I was not aware of. That’s been the biggest eye-opener of this process. The people at LTSE Equity were really good at guiding me through that, knowing what we did or didn’t need, and providing resources.”

- Heidi Huntington, CFO for The Feed on the LTSE Equity onboarding journey.

The results

Since switching to LTSE Equity, Heidi estimates The Feed saves several thousands of dollars annually by not having to outsource cap table management to lawyers or use a pricier platform. Plus, by removing attorneys from the equation, they can work on their own timeline and operate far more efficiently. At a glance, using LTSE Equity has helped The Feed see: 

“With LTSE Equity, we can retain control over our cap table and get things done on the timeline we want. But the greatest savings have to do with its cost efficiency.”

- Heidi Huntington, CFO for The Feed

The future

Heidi and The Feed look forward to managing their cap table with LTSE Equity for the long haul, since LTSE Equity scales seamlessly to support growth-stage companies across their complete journey. The Boost plan will be especially useful as they raise future rounds and begin conducting regular audits and reporting more employee stock compensation. Ultimately, the team at The Feed looks forward to a long-term, high-ROI partnership with LTSE Equity. 

‍