---
title: The One Who Gives First (2) — The Cheapest Investment Is Offering First
url: https://oosioo.com/en/p/%EB%A8%BC%EC%A0%80-%EC%A3%BC%EB%8A%94-%EC%82%AC%EB%9E%8C-2-%EA%B0%80%EC%9E%A5-%EC%A0%80%EB%A0%B4%ED%95%9C-%ED%88%AC%EC%9E%90%EB%8A%94-%EB%A8%BC%EC%A0%80-%EB%82%B4%EB%AF%B8%EB%8A%94-%EA%B2%83%EC%9D%B4%EB%8B%A4
date: 2026-10-09T10:40:58+00:00
author: SYSOP
summary: The cheapest and most valuable things you can give first are your goodwill and your ability. Trust comes back to the people who share credit and open up what they know first.
---
# The One Who Gives First (2) — The Cheapest Investment Is Offering First

Once you decide to give first, a question follows right away: "What do I even have to give?" You may not have much money or any special power. But everyone has two things that cost very little and are worth a great deal: your goodwill and your ability.

![Diagram: goodwill and ability don't open your wallet, yet they carry great value for the person who receives them](/uploads/12f349113795df07.webp =720)

## Hand over the credit first

I once had a teammate who was technically strong but bad at putting himself forward. While we were working, I came up with an idea for improving a process. I could have filed a patent on my own. Instead I told him, "Let's develop this and file the patent under your name." He looked surprised. "But this is your idea." I said, "I may have thought of it, but you're the one who built it and proved it works. That matters more." A few months later his name was on the patent as inventor, and it counted toward his year-end review. What came back to me was his trust. From then on, no matter how hard the task I gave him, the answer was always "I'll give it a try."

![The cycle: hand your idea to a teammate under their name, it becomes their achievement, and it returns to you as trust](/uploads/adc86171e4d111ec.webp =720)

This is the cheapest benefit there is. For me it was one idea; for him it was a turning point in his career. It cost me nothing, yet to the person receiving it, it was worth more than money.

Some people have made handing over credit an outright rule. One legendary college basketball coach, who won ten national championships, had his players point to the teammate who passed them the ball every time they scored. He trained them to give credit to others by reflex. The head of a paper company was known for looking out the window when things went well, crediting other people and good luck, and looking in the mirror when things went badly, taking the blame himself. Under his leadership, the company's stock returns were said to be four times the market average.

## Open up what you know first

You can also open up your ability first. One developer who had majored in Korean literature turned the coding he'd taught himself into lectures and offered them for free for years, with no ads. That material grew into a leading coding education brand and made him the face of the field. A Silicon Valley entrepreneur lived by the rule "If a favor takes five minutes, I'll do it for anyone," and handed out introductions and advice before anyone asked. One magazine named him "the best networker." The connections he made reportedly led to marriages, hundreds of jobs, and dozens of investments.

Some companies have gone further and built goodwill into the institution from the start. On its very first day, when it had almost nothing, an American software company pledged 1% of its equity, 1% of its product, and 1% of employee time to the community. That 1%, set aside while the company was still small, grew as the company grew, turning into hundreds of millions of dollars in donations and millions of hours of volunteer work. Another company is said to have designed its organization so that, instead of orders moving up and down a hierarchy, anyone could ask anyone else directly for help, and offer it. When giving first stops being a matter of personal character and becomes a company rule, the culture travels much further.

There's a knack to giving first, too. The entrepreneur who founded LinkedIn talks about a "small gift theory." Give something that is light for you but useful to the other person, such as a line of information, an introduction to someone, or a quick piece of advice, without expecting anything back right away. He warns that a gift that's too big can backfire, feeling like a burden or even a bribe. What's valuable isn't a big gift. It's the sense to offer, first, a small gift that fits the other person exactly.

Goodwill and ability. Neither one opens your wallet. Yet to the person who receives them, they leave the biggest mark and are remembered the longest.

In the next post, I'll talk about the moment when giving first works most efficiently: that point of asymmetry where something is trivial to you but big to the other person.