Willful

Willful is Canada’s leading online will platform, making estate planning simple, affordable, and accessible. Founded in 2017 by Erin Bury and her husband, Kevin, the company was born out of a personal experience with the challenges of end-of-life planning. Today, Willful has helped tens of thousands of Canadians create legally valid wills and power of attorney documents in just minutes.

As Willful scaled rapidly—particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic when demand for wills surged—the company needed to professionalize its equity management. Like many early-stage startups, Willful began with spreadsheets to track ownership. But as the company raised institutional capital, onboarded employees, and expanded its advisor base, spreadsheets quickly became a liability.

That’s when Willful turned to Mantle.

The challenge

Spreadsheets became a barrier to growth

In the early days, Erin relied on an Excel spreadsheet to manage Willfull’s cap table. For a time, that worked.

But by 2020, Willful had raised its first institutional round of funding and realized the shortcomings of its setup:

• No clear “source of truth”: Different spreadsheet versions were floating around, making it unclear which was the “source of truth.”

• High legal costs: Routine actions like issuing option grants required costly law firm involvement.

• Expensive alternatives: At the time, the only major software option quoted Willful around $5,000 USD per month—far beyond their budget.

Erin knew Willful needed a solution that balanced affordability, usability, and governance rigor.

“No one said to me, a cap table is an extremely important tool. It tells the future of your company. Equity is the one resource you can’t get back once you’ve given it away.”

The solution

Automating governance and gaining founder control

Willful became an early customer of Mantle, a founder-first platform for equity management. For Erin, Mantle solved problems on multiple fronts:

• Cap table clarity: Willful replaced fragmented spreadsheets with a single, real-time cap table that could be shared with investors, lawyers, and accountants at any moment.

• Governance automation: Tasks like board resolutions and option grants could now be issued directly through Mantle—without racking up thousands in legal fees.

• Stakeholder empowerment: Employees, advisors, and investors gained direct access to view their holdings, eliminating the constant back-and-forth of emailed spreadsheets.

• Education & confidence: Mantle’s resources, templates, and planning tools gave Erin the knowledge she wished she’d had from day one.

“Mantle is that equivalent to Brad Feld’s Founder Deals book, which was basically a Bible to me as I went through the fundraising process. It taught me how to read a term sheet and what the difference is between Angel investors and VCs and the motivations of these groups. That’s essentially what you’re doing for founders now.”

The results

"Excellent governance" praised by investors

By adopting Mantle, Willful transformed its equity operations:

• Founder empowerment: Erin now has real-time visibility into the company’s ownership structure.

• Stakeholder transparency: Employees, investors, and other stakeholders can log in anytime to view their holdings.

• Improved governance: Investors now commend Willful for its “excellent governance.”

“I’ve been told by folks that we’ve worked with and investors that we have excellent governance, and one of the reasons that we do is because we use Mantle. Our s-h-i-t is just in order and easily accessible at any given time, and that’s not true for every company.”

Most importantly, Mantle helped Erin feel firmly in control of one of the most valuable resources a founder has: equity.

“Mantle has given me knowledge, which in turn has given me power as a founder. Every founder should use it.”

Erin’s Favorite Mantle Features

When asked about her favorite Mantle features, Erin didn’t hesitate:

“The ability to issue board resolutions and option grants myself. I love Blakes, but I also love not having to email them every time I want to do that.

Also up there is the ability to export my current as-of-that-day cap table to be able to share with my accountants or whoever else needs it instead of digging through my desktop files to find what I think might be the most recent spreadsheet.”

Looking Ahead

As Willful continues to scale and expand partnerships with major banks, funeral providers, and Canadian households, Mantle remains a critical part of its foundation. For Erin, Mantle represents not just efficiency, but empowerment:

“Mantle has given me knowledge, which in turn has given me power as a founder. I think every founder should use cap table management software like Mantle.”