Small Checks, Big Introductions
February 24, 2026
Today, we’re talking about leveraging small checks to find a lead for your seed round.
Here’s another way to make job offers to candidates. In this case, you start as high as you can and remove most of the negotiation. This is how it works:
Make an offer that is 95% of whatever would be too much for this candidate. That means if the candidate asked for more, you would be comfortable saying No and moving on.
Given you’ve made such a generous offer, make sure the candidate knows it’s your very best offer and if they try to negotiate for more, you will have to ask for something else to be reduced in return.
Although this approach is effective, the main problem is that a candidate can shop your offer to another company, leaving you open to being beaten on compensation by a small amount.
Best of luck out there.
