[akharris]

This is part of my point, founders don’t have to accept our deal even though we put it in writing ahead of time. It’s not the founders responsibility to make our business model work, it is their responsibility to build a great company. If we agree on an entry point for us to go along for the ride, great!

[aabhay]

This is exactly the issue though? Investors say “hey you don’t have to raise from us if you don’t want to give up X% of the company”. Which leaves no room to negotiate.

The ONLY time you can expect to sell a smaller % of the company in a round is if you go to an investor and say “hey this OTHER investor wants the same % but is paying more, are you willing to take a lower % at a higher valuation?”. However, this seems very rare and the VC driving up the valuation is usually a higher tier VC in a bidding war, so founders are likely to go with them.

Long story short, if you want to convince founders to sell less of the company, you have to convince top tier VCs to take less, and founders will follow suit.