[webwright]

One thing I've said to acquirers in the past is: "You're a big company that can afford to dedicate a person full-time to this deal for months with no impact to your company's focus and bottom line. We're not. I'm excited about this opportunity, can we brainstorm how to limit the cost of exploring this? And perhaps how we could share the cost a bit more equally?"

When we get into brainstorming mode, two things I navigate towards are: time-boxing the exercise (setting and sticking to an condensed schedule) and earnest money from them after some amount of diligence or discussion.

If a suitor can't commit to getting to a handshake/LOI after X weeks, I wouldn't pursue it.

Unrelated advice: try to hack your own brain and your team into believing that the default result of this is "no deal, time wasted". Many/most deals fall through, which can feel pretty brutal if you get optimistic about it.