Acceptable forms of help

I was reading this note by Kunal Bahl, CEO and co-founder of Snapdeal on the company’s turnaround after the failed acquisition by Flipkart last year. It’s a very interesting note – while I’ve never been a fan of the company (never considered buying from them), this story seems rather interesting, especially given the deep shit it was in a year ago.

What caught my eye is this little note about getting help from a small network of mentors. Bahl writes:

I was able to get the guidance and counsel from some of the most respected and leading business persons in the country. […] In our time of need, it was those who had the least to gain, and most to give, that came to our help. Not with money. But with their wisdom and encouragement. I recall sitting in the room with one of the above persons in August 2017, staring down the barrel with only months of money left in the bank. The gentleman, probably seeing how dire our situation was, picked up the phone and called six of the top business people in the country in quick succession explaining our situation to them – that we were good guys stuck in a bad situation – and requesting them to meet me to see if there were any synergies with their businesses[…]

(emphasis added)

What this got me thinking was about why it’s considered okay to give or take help in the form of intangibles, but not in terms of money. It’s rather common that people help each other out by way of providing advice, making introductions and sometimes just hearing them out. It’s not that common, though, that people help each other out with money.

To take a personal example, if someone asks to talk to me to get some advice, or asks for some connections, it’s very likely that I’ll help them out. On the other hand, if someone were to ask me for money I’ll start seeing them suspiciously.

One quick reason as to why intangibles is okay is that it is sometimes “cheap”. Making introductions doesn’t cost you much as long as you think it’s mutually beneficial for both parties (and in that, it seriously helps if you do double consent introductions – talk to both parties independently before introducing). Advice costs you maybe half an hour or an hour of your time, and if you feel like your time is being wasted, it’s not hard to cut losses. And the value that the recipient gets from this can far exceed the cost incurred by the “giver”.

Another reason is that intangibles are intangible – they’re hard to measure. And by that measure, you don’t rack up some sort of debt. If I take money from you, then what I owe you becomes precisely measurable. And until I repay you, things between us can be awkward. Introductions or advice, on the other hand, keep the value of the “debt” fuzzy, and in most case it gets “written off” any way, permitting the two parties to continue their relationship normally.

Anything else that I might have missed out?