Dynasty, a San Jose-based online platform for trust creation and management, scaled quickly in its first two years, a result of its tightly knit staff working in lockstep.
For CEO and Founder Alessandro Chesser, a former Carta executive, building his startup team could have been stressful, but Carta Total Compensation provided him with the right data to create effective relationships across the company.
Carta Total Compensation uses the largest private-market dataset available to establish compensation benchmarks for any role, level, and region. At Dynasty, it’s how Chesser fosters the level of transparency and teamwork that leads to growth.
Hiring negotiations can be tough for startups. Without historical data, both founders and candidates may be unclear on optimal compensation.
Allesandro ChesserCarta helps us find the right numbers. … Total Compensation has paid for itself. It’s a huge value.
CEO and founder, Dynasty
Chesser was very familiar with the Total Comp product—he is a former vice president of sales at Carta. When he started his own company, he knew he wanted to do more than just say he used data to create offers. In his mind, anyone could say that. Instead, he showed potential hires exactly how he arrived at compensation packages using information from Total Compensation.
“If you can show, ‘Here’s the fair way to do this,’ you’re so much better off. You create such a better relationship with those employees.
“I went through Total Comp step by step, like, ‘This is your role. This is your experience level. Here’s where you live,’ and it lets us discuss compensation systematically. We can check it out together, so it eliminates any adversarial conversation very quickly. People are just like, ‘Yeah, that makes sense. You’re being fair with me.’”
Carta Total Compensation helps Chesser finalize hiring even as Dynasty competes for talent against law firms and other tech companies.
The startup digitizes the creation of trusts—legal entities that hold assets like real estate or stock—allowing users to avoid cumbersome or costly probate when the grantor dies. Typically, trust creation requires attorney services, while Dynasty’s platform requires engineers and other technology specialists.
“We’re not saying, ‘Hey, you should come work for us because we pay the highest salaries.’ We’re a startup, so we hire people who want to be part of our mission. That’s how we track people. Especially in the early days, it’s a different kind of employee.”
Sharing compensation data signals that Dynasty values transparency and collaboration, indicators a candidate could have a great career with the company.
Driving long-term growth with pay equity
Chesser sees Dynasty’s commitment to fair compensation as vital to its growth. The team has fewer than 15 people and handles the creation of several thousand trust accounts monthly. Scaling that quickly might not be possible if individuals weren’t confident in Dynasty’s compensation.
“There are going to be differences in roles across companies, especially at a startup where people wear so many hats. Sometimes, you don’t know everything a person will do until they’re in the role. Carta’s benchmark data will help us adjust compensation so people can do what the company needs to grow.”
Chesser also believes Carta provides an innovative way to potentially close pay gaps, which could increase employee engagement over the long term.
“An important consideration at Dynasty is that not everyone chooses or knows how to negotiate,” Chesser says. “And some companies may have unconscious biases that impair negotiations. For example, some women experience pay gaps that last throughout their careers.
“When you allow negotiation to sway compensation, you could be inadvertently contributing to pay disparities. That’s a culture killer. No one wants to find out their coworkers do the same or less work and get paid more.
“Using data-driven benchmarks supports pay equity. It eliminates the background distraction of not knowing if you’re being paid fairly and lets the team focus on doing their best work together.”
Tracking hiring impact in Carta
Dynasty uses Total Comp with Carta’s cap table, allowing Chesser to make more informed decisions about compensation strategy. Chesser knew fairly early that it was a necessary tool for his company.
“We started using Carta as soon as we started hiring,” Chesser says. “We had tried to manage our cap table in a spreadsheet at first, but the legal fees added up quickly.”
With Carta Total Comp, Dynasty’s cap table updates automatically, letting Chesser evaluate equity pool runway and future financial health.
“Early hires can be expensive from an equity perspective,” he explains. “So even if a company isn’t hiring many people, all it takes is one big hire and it could be from one percent to three percent of your company.
“Carta helps us find the right numbers. Even as a smaller company, Total Compensation has paid for itself. It’s a huge value.”
