Key Takeaways
- Preparation is the negotiation. The meeting is just the execution.
- Understanding the other side's constraints is more valuable than understanding your own position.
- The question you do not ask is often the one that would have changed the outcome.
Saim Abbasi has negotiated hundreds of deals across his career, from founder equity arrangements to acquisition terms to vendor contracts. The pattern he observes in founders who consistently get worse outcomes is not that they lack confidence or negotiating skill. It is that they did not do the preparation.
Preparation Is the Real Negotiation
The negotiation meeting is mostly execution of a strategy that should be developed before the meeting starts. The strategy requires understanding: what you want, what your minimum acceptable outcome is, what the other party probably wants, what their constraints are, and what creative structures might address both parties' core interests simultaneously.
Founders who walk into negotiations without this preparation spend the meeting discovering what they should have known before it started. By the time they have that information, they have already made concessions that a prepared negotiator would not have made.
The Other Side's Constraint as the Key Variable
The most useful information in any negotiation is rarely your own position. It is the other party's constraints. A buyer who needs to close before end of quarter is negotiating with a time constraint that changes their behavior. An investor who has already committed to three other deals in the same sector has a concentration constraint. Understanding these constraints before the meeting allows you to structure proposals that address them.
Most founders research their own position extensively. Few do equivalent research on the other party's position. The asymmetry is an advantage that well-prepared negotiators exploit consistently.
The Question Strategy
Questions are underused in negotiations. Not rhetorical questions designed to make a point. Genuine questions designed to gather information and to invite the other party to elaborate on their reasoning. A question that reveals the other party's constraint is worth more than any argument about your own position. Saim's practice is to plan at least five specific questions before any significant negotiation and to prioritize asking them before making proposals.
"Most people enter negotiations knowing what they want. The ones who know what the other side needs are the ones who get it."