Field note · September 2026

Whoever Already Committed the Budget Pays First

New connectors usually assume the side that benefits most from an introduction should be the one who pays for it. That’s a reasonable guess, and it’s wrong often enough to matter.

Payment doesn’t follow benefit. It follows budget that’s already been committed. A company that just filed a complaint, opened a search or hit a deadline has already decided money is moving on this problem, soon. A company that merely could benefit from a fix someday hasn’t decided anything yet, and won’t pay to be sold on deciding.

The fee comes from whoever already said yes to spending. Everyone else is still deciding, and you can’t invoice a maybe.

That’s the whole logic behind fee structures where one side pays and the other doesn’t cost a thing. It’s not generosity toward the free side, it’s an accurate read of who has actually moved. The paying side isn’t paying for the introduction. They’re paying to skip the search they were already going to run.

Get that backwards, chase the side that theoretically benefits more instead of the side that already committed, and you’ll spend months pitching companies that were never going to write a check, while the ones already reaching for their wallet go find someone else.

Obaid Mehar connects companies with a problem to the specialists who solve it, and prices the introduction by who already moved.