How to tell if someone is taking advantage of you in business

It’s easy to mistake generosity for strategy when you’re starting out. In the early months of building my first startup, I said yes to almost everything. Intro request? Yes. Coffee chat? Yes. Guest spot on a podcast with six listeners? Yes. I thought I was doing what good founders do—showing up, supporting others, and building community.

But it didn’t take long before my calendar was flooded, my energy drained, and my own team left wondering why the people I was “helping” never seemed to help us back. One founder even asked, gently but pointedly, “Is this person building with you—or just building off you?”

It was the first time I really stopped to consider whether my openness had turned into a liability. Not for the business metrics, but for the culture I was creating. And once I started looking, I saw the pattern clearly. There are people who grow with you—and people who grow because of you, but without offering anything in return.

In hindsight, there were always signs. But when you’re in the middle of it—especially when someone feels like part of your “network” or a fellow founder—it’s hard to draw the line between collaboration and quiet extraction. You assume good intent. You let things slide. And before long, you realize you’ve handed over access, insight, and emotional labor to someone who was never truly in your corner.

We tell founders to be generous. But we don’t tell them what to do when that generosity is exploited. So here’s what I wish someone had told me early on—because I would’ve saved a lot of energy, avoided a few relationship landmines, and protected my team from secondhand fallout.

In our second year, we had a recurring collaborator—a fellow founder we’d met through a pitch competition. On paper, she was everything we admired: scrappy, mission-driven, well-connected. She offered help freely and talked about “growing together.” We believed her. We looped her into meetings, invited her into strategy sessions, and even added her to a partner Slack workspace. It felt like the right thing to do. She didn’t have the same resources we had, and we were proud to share what we’d built.

Then came the signs. One day, I received a message from an investor we’d been nurturing. He’d just gotten an intro request from her—with a forward of our deck attached. No context. No heads-up. Just a direct name-drop and our materials being passed along like public domain. When I asked her about it, she brushed it off. “I thought it’d help you,” she said. “More visibility, right?”

That was the moment I realized: this wasn’t mutual. This wasn’t support. This was opportunism, dressed in the language of community. And I’d let it happen, because I didn’t want to seem petty, territorial, or unkind.

But the hard truth is that someone who respects your work doesn’t exploit your trust. They don’t borrow your name without clarity. They don’t cross boundaries you haven’t explicitly lowered. And they certainly don’t treat your materials like theirs to give away.

What I learned is that one of the clearest signs someone is taking advantage of you in business is when they use your credibility to advance themselves—but avoid accountability when it backfires. They’re quick to reference your relationship when it benefits them, and just as quick to minimize it when you raise concern.

Another sign, and one that’s far harder to quantify, is emotional extraction. These are the people who always seem to be in a crisis, always need your ear, and always take the call. You tell yourself you’re being a good peer. But when you step back, you realize the dynamic is one-sided. They aren’t calling to offer help or insight. They’re calling because they know you’ll answer. Because you’ve become the sounding board they don’t have elsewhere. Because your clarity has become their crutch.

And yet, when you have a moment of your own—when you’re the one who’s stretched thin, facing a tough call, or in need of honest feedback—they’re nowhere to be found. Or worse, they default to vague platitudes and quickly change the subject.

I once spent four late-night calls coaching someone through a product pivot she wasn’t ready to face. She cried, vented, and thanked me profusely. But the next month, when I asked if she’d be willing to review a deck I was preparing for a critical investor, she went silent. Not even a “sorry, I’m slammed.” Just radio silence. That’s when it hit me: I wasn’t a friend. I was a resource. And when I stopped being useful, I became invisible.

Real relationships in business may not always be perfectly reciprocal in the moment. But over time, there should be a flow—a give and take, a shared sense of commitment. If you find yourself pouring into someone again and again, and never receiving even a sliver of support back, ask yourself why you’re still doing it. Is it loyalty? Guilt? Fear of seeming “ungrateful”? Or is it because part of you still hopes they’ll one day become the collaborator you imagined?

There’s also the classic “we should collaborate” trap. It starts with enthusiasm. They suggest a joint webinar, a shared content project, maybe even a co-marketing opportunity. You say yes. You draft the proposal. You send the invites. You build the slide deck. You handle the back-end logistics. And on the day of, they show up late, wing it, and take credit for the turnout.

I’ve lived that script more than once. And every time, I told myself it was a one-off. That maybe they were just busy. That maybe they didn’t realize how much work I’d put in.

But over time, the pattern became clear. Their version of “collaboration” always meant me doing the heavy lifting. They’d contribute the idea—and I’d do the execution. And when results came in, they were quick to screenshot the praise and add it to their investor update.

It’s not always malicious. Some people genuinely don’t realize how much they’re taking. But intention doesn’t erase impact. And if you’re consistently the one driving the work while someone else reaps the visibility, it’s time to reframe what you’re calling “partnership.”

The final and most dangerous sign someone is taking advantage of you in business is how they respond to boundaries. Do they accept your no with grace—or do they guilt you into a yes? Do they respect your limits—or push just enough to make you question them?

I’ve had someone text me three times in a day after I didn’t respond to a meeting request. I’ve had people reference our “friendship” as a reason I should offer them a discount. I’ve even had someone say, “You of all people should understand—I thought you supported female founders.”

That kind of manipulation isn’t always loud. It’s often wrapped in flattery, community language, or moral obligation. But the root is the same: control masked as connection.

If someone makes you feel small, guilty, or selfish for protecting your time, your team, or your intellectual property, they’re not your ally. They’re using your values against you.

So what do you do when you realize it’s happening? You draw the line. Not with drama. Not with revenge. But with clarity. You stop offering energy to relationships that drain you. You stop justifying your gut instincts. You stop explaining your “no.”

You don’t need to issue a formal breakup. You just stop opening the door.

It took me too long to learn that boundaries don’t make you hard. They make you honest. And in business, honesty is a form of protection—both for you and for the team you’re leading.

Because your people are watching. They see who you let in. They see what you tolerate. They see when your generosity becomes exploitation—and when your silence becomes endorsement.

The founders I mentor now often ask how to build strong networks. And I tell them: build them slowly. Build them with discernment. Build them with people who offer as much as they ask, and who speak about you the same way whether you’re in the room or not.

Because if someone truly values the relationship, they’ll respect your boundaries. They won’t push past them. They won’t test your guilt. And they won’t confuse access with entitlement.

Being taken advantage of in business doesn’t make you naive. It means you were open, hopeful, and perhaps a little too slow to notice the imbalance. But the moment you see it—you get to decide how it ends.

You don’t need to get even. You just need to get clear.

The hardest part isn’t walking away from people who used you. It’s forgiving yourself for letting it happen. For not speaking up sooner. For choosing the story you wanted to believe over the reality that was playing out.

But clarity is a gift. Once you see the pattern, you can stop repeating it. You can build sharper filters. You can teach your team what to watch for. And you can channel your energy back into people and projects that actually build with you—not off you.

So if you’re reading this and a name or face popped into your head, trust that. Trust the tension you’ve been ignoring. Trust the moments you’ve justified. Trust the fatigue you feel after every interaction.

And then ask yourself the question I wish I had asked sooner: What would my business look like if I stopped giving away energy to people who never intended to give it back?

You don’t owe anyone your bandwidth just because they were nice once. You don’t have to keep saying yes to people who only show up when it serves them. And you certainly don’t need to explain your boundaries to people who wouldn’t respect them anyway.

Generosity is powerful. But only when it’s directed with intention. The rest? That’s just leakage.

Let it leak no more.