Early-stage opportunities have a particular energy to them. Someone is building something, they need help, and the framing is generous: you would own this, you would be core, this could become something real. It is easy to get pulled into that momentum before you have asked the questions that actually matter.
I have been on the receiving end of that energy recently. Nothing went wrong. But the process of thinking it through properly taught me a few things I want to write down, mostly for myself.
Know your number before the conversation starts
The most common mistake I see, and have made myself, is discovering your floor during the negotiation rather than before it. When you do not know what the minimum acceptable arrangement looks like for you, you end up anchoring to whatever is offered and working downward from there.
This is not just about money. It is about time, scope, and what you are actually putting on the table. In any BD or growth role, you are not just contributing hours. You are contributing your network, your credibility with the people in that network, and the trust those people have placed in your judgment over years. That has a real cost. If someone is asking you to use those assets on behalf of their product, price the full stack, not just the hours.
Name the structure before you agree to the scope
Core team, founding member, growth lead. These are meaningful titles when they come with a clear compensation model, a written agreement, and ideally equity.
When they do not, they are just language.
This is not about distrust. It is about clarity. The best professional relationships I have seen, especially in early-stage environments, start with explicit agreements about who does what, who earns what, and what happens if things change. Vagueness might feel comfortable early on but it creates compounding problems later.
Before agreeing to any scope of work, I now ask: what is the structure? If that question is hard to answer, the engagement is not ready to start.
Do your homework on the product before you commit to selling it
You cannot close deals on something you are not genuinely sold on. It isn’t dishonest, but because conviction is felt in every conversation. The people you speak to will sense hesitation even when it is never stated directly.
More practically: if you introduce something to someone who trusts you and it underdelivers, the person they associate that experience with is you. Your reputation travels with whatever you attach it to.
Before committing to any sales or BD engagement, I want to have seen the product work, understood its actual edge versus the pitch, and spoken to at least one real customer if possible. I also now check what already exists publicly: pricing pages, partner programs, positioning. The public record often tells you more about what a business actually values than the conversation does.
Conviction on the category is not the same as conviction on the product
This one is subtle. A category can be proven and a specific product can still be half-baked. Both things can be true at once.
When evaluating an early-stage opportunity, the relevant question is not whether the problem is real. It usually is. The question is whether this specific product, at this specific stage, with this specific team, is ready to be sold. If the pricing model is still being figured out, if the founder has doubts about retention, if the competitive moat is not clear, that is information worth taking seriously before you put your name behind it.
A strong category gives you something to point at. A strong product gives you something to sell. They are not interchangeable.
None of this is complicated in hindsight. But in the moment, when someone is enthusiastic about what they are building and you can see the potential in it, it is easy to skip past the structural questions. I am writing this down so I stop doing that.
