But it's actually ok - we were starting a business, and reached out to our acquaintance who did several exits and generally knows how to make startups. He rejected any payment exactly for that reason: "You are not in the situation where you can or want to hire me as a full-price consultant, I am interested how your idea will work out, but I don't want to get 3.50 from you and become responsible. I advice you for free, I use my experience and either:

• You succeed, lesson learned, I enforce my knowledge on how things work
• You fail, lesson learned, ahit happens, we tried.
  Our business didn't last long for unrelated reason (rental property conflict), but we reallybloked the format and he gave some useful hints (some of them even worked over 3 months we'be been working)