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Steli Efti

Co-founder & CEO, Close · 1 appearance on the record.

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founderexecutiveauthorhost@Steli ↗LinkedIn ↗steliefti.com ↗

Steli Efti is the co-founder and CEO of Close, a CRM and sales automation platform built for inside sales teams and SMBs. A Y Combinator alumnus who previously founded ElasticSales, he is also an author and advisor focused on startup sales.

14statements → 5claims → 0claims resolved → 4.14/5average certainty → 1.5/5average debate potential → ≈4.5/5argument clarity, estimated → 14said about them ↓

5 not checkable as stated how the 5 claims stand · each chip opens the sources

5 assertions · 4 insights · 5 disclosures · every statement was checked. The predictions and assertions are the 5 claims: statements the public record can support or contradict. 0 are resolved, and 5 name no date, number or outcome precise enough to check. Everything else (opinions, insights, what ifs, disclosures) can never be settled by the record, so it carries no assessment.

The record, in short

What the tape says about how Steli argues and how the claims held up. Everything they said, and everything said about them, is in the tabs below.

How they sound: not measured why? →

We measure speaking style by listening to the audio itself, and a fair number needs at least 2,000 words from one person on tape we have measured. There is too little of Steli Efti on measured tape to publish a rate. This says nothing about how they speak.

Everything Steli Efti said on Top Founders that made the record, most notable first. Filter by type, assessment or year in the ledger →

Insight
Churning a bad-fit customer is entirely a marketing and sales failure
“Well, that is a tragedy still, because why the fuck did we close them in the first place? What did we do wrong in our marketing? What do we do wrong on our sales to never indicate that this should, this is a customer that shouldn't buy our product. We did some…”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 12:29 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Insight
Selling incomplete software reveals actual customer demand and prioritizes product roadmaps
“What we did is we said we have one very unique, strong thing that the product does. If people really care, they'll buy even if it's really insufficient in many other areas. Like we sold sales software that didn't have any reporting in it. And people still boug…”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 14:03 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Disclosure
Steli Efti refuses to sell Close.io for $40 million
“Not even close.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 19:38 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Insight
Solving client problems manually gives SaaS spinouts an unfair market advantage
“Yeah, this is a very common, I think it's a common, a trend for like a pattern to get to a great valuable business idea, which is you're stumbling or identifying a problem that real customers, real people have, and then you build a solution for that because yo…”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 4:04 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Insight
Efti: Channel testing requires pre-planning for ambiguous results
“And I think one of the most important things that, that I teach people and the thing that we've learned to do is to plan for all three scenarios and say, okay, what does success look like and failure, but what is the in between? And what do we do if the first …”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 18:43 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Efti: Close.io generates millions in revenue with under 20 employees
“It's a very small team. We're less than 20 people and we're driving many, many millions in revenue and are competing with massive organizations.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 2:10 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Close.io's average customer pays between $400 and $500 per month
“The average per month is probably, you know, in the four or 500 dollars.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 6:03 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Efti confirms Close.io generates at least $200,000 in MRR
“That is for sure.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 7:49 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Disclosure
Efti: Close.io is profitable, self-funded, and took zero venture funding
“We're running a profitable self-funded business at this point, and Close.io never got a dollar in venture funding in one way or another.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 8:22 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Efti: Close.io's fully weighted CAC is under $1,000
“It is less on the ground.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 17:28 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Close.io generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in its first year
“I do remember what the first year revenue was. It was a few 100,000 in revenue.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 2:57 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Disclosure
Efti: Close.io's entry tier is $65 per user monthly
“The cheapest plan that we have, we're the, if not the most expensive CRM in the space, we're at the premium level in our pricing, so the cheapest plan we have is 65 dollars per user per month.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 5:26 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Disclosure
Steli Efti raised over $1M immediately after graduating from Y Combinator
“We raised raised a little bit over a million a few weeks after graduating from YC.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 9:23 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M
Disclosure
Close.io gifts 'The PayPal Wars' to every new employee upon hiring
“It's a book we give to every new employee we hire.”
Steli Efti Oct 30, 2016 ▶ 23:58 EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M

The other half of the tape: Steli Efti's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 14 times in 6 episodes on Top Founders. every mention, with the transcript →

Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 8Peter Coppinger 6

Every mention by year

tap a year for its mentions
003263201620172018episodesmentions
023201620172018episodes it came up in
0031.563201620172018episodesmentions per episode
2018 6 mentions in 1 episode
2017 4 mentions in 3 episodes 1 per episode
2016 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode

Appearances (1)

EpisodeDateSpeaking time
EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Won Oct 30, 2016 15m
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