Der Term-Sheet-Warnsignal-Scanner: Finden Sie gründerunfreundliche Klauseln vor der Unterschrift
Warum dieser Prompt wichtig ist
Founders who can't tell which term sheet clauses are actually negotiable either waste legal fees re-litigating standard market terms with their own attorney, or worse, sign away liquidation preferences, anti-dilution protection, or board control that compound through every subsequent financing round. A bad clause in a seed-stage term sheet doesn't cost you once — it costs you at every exit and every future raise after it.
Wofür wir ihn verwenden
You're a first-time founder who just received a term sheet from a lead investor for your seed round, with a Tuesday deadline to respond, and you've never negotiated a priced round before — your lawyer is available but billing by the hour, and you want to walk into that call already knowing where the real fights are.
Prompt
Act as an experienced startup attorney who represents founders, not investors, and has reviewed hundreds of venture term sheets across seed through Series B rounds. Context: Here is the term sheet I need reviewed: [PASTE YOUR TERM SHEET HERE]. For reference, here is my round stage and approximate size: [E.G. SEED ROUND, $2M, PRE-SEED, SERIES A]. Task: Scan the term sheet clause by clause and flag any terms that are non-standard for this round stage, founder-unfriendly, or genuinely worth negotiating. For each flagged clause, explain in plain English what it means, why it matters in practice, and what a more founder-favorable market-standard alternative looks like. Constraints: - Do not flag standard, market-normal terms as problems — only flag genuine outliers - Do not present this as a substitute for an actual lawyer's review; note explicitly that this is a starting point for that conversation, not a final answer - Rank flagged items by negotiation priority: deal-breaker, worth pushing back on, or minor - Explain clauses in plain English rather than restating the legal jargon back Output format: 1. A summary verdict: how founder-friendly is this term sheet overall, on a 1-5 scale, with a one-sentence reason 2. A table: Clause | What it says | Why it matters | Suggested ask 3. The top 3 negotiation priorities to raise first, in order
Ergebnis
Summary verdict: 2/5 — several clauses are meaningfully more investor-friendly than seed-stage market norms; this term sheet needs real negotiation before signing.
Clause table:
Liquidation preference | 2x non-participating preferred | At seed stage, market standard is 1x. A 2x preference means the investor gets 2x their investment back before any proceeds reach common holders, even in a modest exit. | Push for 1x non-participating — this is one of the most common and most negotiable terms on any term sheet.
Anti-dilution | Full-ratchet | Full-ratchet anti-dilution is rare outside distressed or bridge rounds. It means that if you ever raise a down round, this investor's ownership percentage is protected in full, and all the resulting dilution lands on founders and employees instead of being shared. | Request broad-based weighted average anti-dilution, the market standard at every stage outside distressed financings.
Board composition | 2 investor seats, 1 founder seat | At a $2M seed round, giving investors board majority is unusual and hands them effective control over hiring, firing, and future fundraising decisions well before the company has product-market fit. | Ask for a founder-majority board, or a balanced structure such as 2 founder seats, 1 investor seat, 1 mutually agreed independent.
Pro rata rights | Uncapped, applies to all future rounds | This is standard for a lead investor at this stage and not a red flag. | Leave as is.
Vesting | 4-year vesting with 1-year cliff applied retroactively to founder shares | This matches market norms for seed-stage founder re-vesting and protects the company if a co-founder leaves early. | Leave as is.
Top 3 negotiation priorities, in order: 1) Liquidation preference, 2x down to 1x — this single change affects the payout math in every future exit scenario, good or bad. 2) Anti-dilution, full-ratchet to broad-based weighted average — this is what protects your ownership stake specifically in a down round, which is exactly when you can least afford to lose more of the company. 3) Board composition — don't concede board control at the seed stage unless this specific investor is bringing something to the table that's genuinely irreplaceable beyond the capital itself.
This term sheet is workable, but not as submitted. Taking the liquidation preference and anti-dilution points into the next call alone would move this from roughly a 2/5 to a 4/5 on founder-friendliness, and both are common enough asks that pushing back on them won't read as unreasonable to an experienced investor.
Ein Erstgründer mit einem Term Sheet und einer Deadline am Dienstag hat meist zwei schlechte Optionen: etwas unterschreiben, das er nicht vollständig versteht, oder stundenlang Anwaltshonorare dafür ausgeben, grundlegende Venture-Capital-Mechanismen erneut zu erklären, bevor die eigentliche Verhandlung beginnen kann. Dieser Prompt wurde entwickelt, um diese Lücke zu schließen — nicht indem er den Anwalt ersetzt, sondern indem er sicherstellt, dass der Gründer bereits weiß, wo die echten Kämpfe liegen, wenn er zu diesem Gespräch geht.
Warum dieser Prompt so aufgebaut ist
Die Rolle-Anweisung legt einen Anwalt auf Gründerseite fest, keinen neutralen Prüfer, da die Prüfung eines Term Sheets von Natur aus konfrontativ ist. Der Abschnitt Kontext fragt nach Runden-Stadium und -Größe, weil das, was als Warnsignal gilt, relativ zur Runde ist.
Der Abschnitt Einschränkungen leistet hier die wichtigste Arbeit. «Markieren Sie keine Standardklauseln als Probleme» existiert, weil ein uneingeschränktes Modell oft «Rechtsdokument» mit «seien Sie gründlich» verknüpft und Routineklauseln markiert, die den Gründer grundlos beunruhigen. Die explizite Anweisung «dies ersetzt keinen Anwalt» ist eine bewusste Haftungsschranke.
Das Ausgabeformat — Gesamtbewertung, dann Klausel-Tabelle, dann die drei wichtigsten priorisierten Punkte — spiegelt wider, wie ein Gründer dies unter Zeitdruck tatsächlich nutzen muss.
Wo dieses Tool seinen Wert beweist
Der wertvollste Moment für diesen Prompt ist nicht eine sorgfältige, unaufgeregte Prüfung — es sind die 48 Stunden zwischen Erhalt eines Term Sheets und dem Gespräch, bei dem Fragen erwartet werden. Das Dokument vor diesem Gespräch durch diesen Prompt laufen zu lassen, verwandelt ein vages Gefühl von «hier stimmt etwas nicht» in drei konkrete, begründbare Forderungen.