Le scanner de signaux d'alerte de term sheet : repérez les clauses défavorables au fondateur avant de signer
Pourquoi ce prompt est important
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.
À quoi nous l'utilisons
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
Résultat
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.
Un fondateur novice avec un term sheet et une échéance au mardi a généralement deux mauvaises options : signer quelque chose qu'il ne comprend pas entièrement, ou dépenser des heures d'honoraires d'avocat à réexpliquer les mécanismes de base du capital-risque avant que la vraie négociation ne commence. Ce prompt est conçu pour combler cet écart — non en remplaçant l'avocat, mais en s'assurant que le fondateur arrive à cet appel en sachant déjà où se trouvent les vrais combats.
Pourquoi ce prompt est construit ainsi
L'instruction de Rôle spécifie un avocat du côté du fondateur, pas un réviseur neutre, car l'examen d'un term sheet est intrinsèquement conflictuel. La section Contexte demande le stade et la taille du tour de table car ce qui compte comme signal d'alerte est relatif au tour.
La section Contraintes fait le travail le plus important ici. « Ne signalez pas les termes standards comme des problèmes » existe parce qu'un modèle non contraint associe souvent « document juridique » à « soyez exhaustif » et signale des clauses routinières qui rendent le fondateur anxieux sans raison. L'instruction explicite « ceci ne remplace pas un avocat » est une protection délibérée contre la responsabilité.
Le format de sortie — score global, puis tableau des clauses, puis les 3 principales priorités classées — reflète la façon dont un fondateur a réellement besoin d'utiliser cela sous pression temporelle.
Où cet outil fait ses preuves
Le moment de plus grande valeur pour ce prompt n'est pas un examen minutieux et sans précipitation, mais les 48 heures entre la réception d'un term sheet et l'appel où l'on attend de vous des questions. Faire passer le document par ce prompt avant cet appel transforme un vague sentiment que « quelque chose ne va pas ici » en trois demandes spécifiques et défendables.