This sounds so easy but plenty lawyers sound great but have no clue either, or will believe that bad ideas aren’t, etc. And they’ll deal with the same VC much sooner than with you, so they’re not particularly incentivized to play super hardball.

If I were a first time founder I wouldn’t know where to find the right lawyer. In all honesty I still don’t and I’ve been at it for 8 years now.

I was tangentially involved in a deal where a Big Tech company acquired a VC-funded startup. The startup hired an investment bank as an advisor. The same investment bank that routinely underwrites debt offerings for the Big Tech company. Somehow they advised the startup to take the deal and not play hardball, even though there were public company comps at twice the valuation offered.