Regarding Carta onboarding, there's an involved process and associated fees. You can check out the few dozen help articles they have on the subject matter here: https://support.carta.com/category/415-onboarding---private-.... I recommend reaching out to their team to discuss further.
I can share more war stories we run into - ping me at ray at ltse dot com.
> I always lean towards solving the problem today vs. problems 5 years down the road
Are you alluding to the problem of setting up w/ Carta, suggesting to bite that bullet now vs five years from now?
If so, the former calls for paying a few grand for the same capabilities of a free captable service, but the latter could a pain b/c the captable/stakeholders would be much more complex in several years.