Key Takeaways
- Information asymmetry is always available even when positional leverage is not.
- Patience is the cheapest form of leverage and the most underused.
- Revealing what matters most to you is expensive. Revealing what matters least often creates value.
The standard negotiation advice is built around the concept of leverage: you get good terms when you have options and the other party knows it. Walk away credibly and the deal improves. Run a competitive process and the price goes up. These principles are real. They are also often unavailable to founders in specific situations, particularly early in their careers when the business is the only option and the walk-away credibility is low.
Saim Abbasi has negotiated deals from both positions, strong and weak. The techniques that worked when leverage was thin are different from the standard playbook.
Information as Substitute for Positional Leverage
When positional leverage is limited, information leverage often is not. The party that understands the other side's constraints, timeline pressures, and decision criteria better than the other side understands theirs is in a meaningfully stronger position regardless of the nominal power dynamics.
In practical terms: do the work to understand why the buyer wants this deal, what would make the deal fall apart from their side, and what is driving their timeline. A buyer who needs to close by end of quarter for accounting reasons is working with a different set of constraints than one who has no time pressure. Those constraints are negotiating resources even when the raw power balance is unfavorable.
Patience as Leverage
The cheapest form of leverage in any negotiation is patience. The party that can wait longest has a structural advantage because urgency drives decisions that patience would not make. Saim's experience is that founders in weak positions consistently underestimate how much value they give away by revealing urgency, even subtly. Slowing the pace, asking for more time to "review with advisors," and not responding to pressure to close quickly all cost nothing and signal that you are not desperate.
Creating Options When You Do Not Have Them
When the genuine walk-away option is not credible, sometimes the right move is to create one. Starting a conversation with a second potential buyer, even an unlikely one, gives you information about alternative valuations and creates the possibility of a competitive dynamic. Even a conversation that does not progress creates real information that changes how you think about the deal in front of you.
"Leverage is not about power. It is about options. Create options and you create leverage."