A $400k check wants a board seat and an observer. At pre-seed.

Our round is $800k. A small fund offered to take half of it — first institutional yes after four months of nos, and I nearly cried on the call. Then the draft terms arrived: one of three board seats, plus a board observer seat for one of their LPs.

Every operator I ask says some version of "no board before a priced seed, you'll spend ten hours a month preparing decks for a $400k check." But the alternative is going back to stitching the round together $25k at a time from angels who keep "circling back."

Is a board seat for a check this size market anywhere, or is this fund just trying it on? And is the observer seat the thing I should actually fight, since that's a stranger in every hard conversation? I have exactly one term sheet, so my negotiating position is mostly theater.