The phone calls had gone perfectly. Dozens of them. "We love this." "Exactly what we need." "That price sounds fair." He hung up each time more certain than the last and started building the revenue model. Then the contracts didn't come. Not one.

What if every encouraging "yes" you've collected is quietly lying to you? The most dangerous feedback a founder gets isn't rejection, it's politeness.

In Episode 13 of Starting Up, host Jay Sensi exposes the gap between what people say and what people actually do. Drawing from nearly twelve years selling My College Roomie, Jay reveals why he never sold a single client at the price everyone called "fair," how to tell a real yes from a polite one, and why a genuine "no" is worth more than a hundred enthusiastic maybes.

People are nice. On a phone call, "yes" costs nothing, no commitment, no budget meeting, no signature. Multiply those free yeses by a price nobody actually agreed to and you've built your entire financial plan on a fantasy. The founders who survive are the ones who can predict how many yeses become revenue.

In this video, you will learn:

1️⃣ Real Yes vs. Polite Yes: The exact questions that force specificity and instantly separate genuine buyers from people just being kind.

2️⃣ Make Them Name the Price: Why telling prospects your price ruins the answer, and the open-ended question that surfaces what they'll truly pay.

3️⃣ The Buying Signals That Matter: How hedging language and who's asking the questions reveal more than any "yes" ever will, plus the 10% rule for honest forecasting.

4️⃣ Why "No" Is a Gift: How to turn every rejection into a free consulting session, mine it for patterns, and convert objections into a competitive advantage.

Optimism builds startups. Realism sustains them. Build your model on the people who will actually sign, not the ones who were only being nice.

If you're getting value from Starting Up, make sure to SUBSCRIBE, and please like, comment, and share, every bit helps reach more founders. New episodes drop weekly. Get ready for next week's episode, where Jay turns everything about rejection into a tactical playbook: the exact follow-up questions for every type of "no," and how to make rejection your competitive advantage.

Jay's full entrepreneurial story is coming soon in his upcoming book, Starting Up. Subscribers get exclusive early access when it launches!

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