Found a Great Way to Handle Startup Valuation — Curious What Others Are Using

Hey IndieHackers 👋

I’m James, founder of therappai — we’re building the world’s first AI video therapy platform for founders, teams, and organizations to manage burnout and mental wellbeing.

As part of preparing for our seed round, I’ve been working through all the usual startup validation steps — traction metrics, product-market fit signals, early pilots, and valuation.

I recently started using Carta to handle our 409A valuation, cap table, and ESOP setup, and it’s been a surprisingly smooth process. They make it easy to model dilution scenarios and investor rounds — which helps massively when you’re trying to make decisions around early equity grants and fundraising strategy.

It got me thinking —
👉 How are other founders here handling valuation and early financial validation?

Are you using Carta, Pulley, Eqvista, or something else?

Did you get an external valuation, or use a benchmark/multiple-based estimate?

How early do you formalize it — pre-revenue or after some traction?

Would love to hear how others have approached this stage — especially bootstrapped or pre-seed founders who are trying to validate their idea and set up clean equity structures for future growth.