We talked to a freight company a while back. They’d been screwed over so many times by previous web companies that they were jaded — deep in it. And when we walked them through how we work, no contracts, leave whenever you want, they didn’t believe us.
Not in the polite way where someone nods and moves on. They didn’t believe that we had no contracts. They’d been burned, and all the evidence wasn’t enough to sway them.
That’s what a fear-based model does to people.
What Happens When the Lock-In Becomes the Lens
The freight company wasn’t evaluating us on our work. They were evaluating us through the paradigm their last provider built for them — one where every promise has a catch, every “no obligation” is a setup, and the only reason a company would let you leave is because they’re about to make it hard to.
Life can put you in a fear-based model. And once you’re in one, everything looks like a trap. The offer doesn’t matter. The proof doesn’t matter. You’ve been trained to distrust, and the training is stronger than the pitch.
We couldn’t convince them. And that’s fine, being transparent hurts us sometimes.
If you’re in that paradigm, that’s fine. We’re not going to chase someone into believing us. But it’s worth naming what happened there — a prospect who might have been a great fit walked away not because of anything we did or didn’t do, but because the company before us made it impossible for them to hear anything different.
The Cage With the Door Open
Much of the philosophy of Yeet Websites is based on the rejection of fear-based premises. When it comes to money, believing in abundance versus believing in scarcity is a mindset. If you believe in scarcity, money will be scarce. If you believe in abundance, money will be abundant. That’s not woo — that’s how you run a company without clinging to people who want to go.
If you hold onto something tight, it will want to get away.
Having no contracts is not living in fear. It’s the opposite. It’s a bird in a cage with the door open — the bird stays because it wants to, not because the door is shut. And if the bird leaves, that was always its right. We didn’t lose something. We never had it the way a locked door pretends you do.
If that sounds like a different kind of web company — it is.
Some People Need to Leave
There’s a distinction most web companies never think about. Some people want to leave — they found someone else, they’re moving in a different direction, whatever. But some people need to leave. What if the main person in the business dies and the kids don’t want to run it? What if the company folds and there’s no money coming in?
I could not imagine saying, “Sorry, you’re in a contract for another eight months. You’ve got to keep paying.” These people are bleeding money. Like I just can’t imagine doing it. And it would never happen.
If someone wants to leave, we’ll be the first ones to pack their bags. We don’t need to work with people that don’t respect what we’ve built — and they don’t need to stay somewhere that doesn’t respect them. Maybe they don’t get that we don’t have customers, we have clients. There’s a difference.
That freight company is still out there somewhere, probably locked into something they hate. And the company holding them there is counting on exactly that.
We’d rather be the ones you stay with because you want to.
Yeetish Question
Why would a web design company not use contracts?
Because having no contracts is not living in fear — it’s living in confidence. If the work is good and the relationship is real, a contract adds nothing. If the work is bad and the relationship is broken, a contract just forces someone to keep paying for something they don’t want. We’d rather earn the stay every month.