Steli Efti, CEO and founder of Close.io. Listen as Steli talks about how he uses sales and communication to his company’s advantage and why he won’t disclose their churn rate—his answer WILL surprise you.

Famous Five:

Favorite Book? – The Paypal Wars
What CEO do you follow? – N/A

Favorite online tool? — Evernote
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— Yes
If you could let your 20-year old self know one thing, what would it be? – “I wish I knew how to manage my own emotions and focus on consistency”

Time Stamped Show Notes:

01:23 – Nathan introduces Steli to the show
01:52 – Steli’s entrepreneurial power is in sales and communication
02:02 – Close.io is Steli’s biggest success
02:15 – There are less than 20 people in the team
02:21 – Steli is competing with massive organizations
02:40 – They launched their first product in 2013
02:56 – First year revenue is $ 200,000
- 03:10 – They started as a services business
04:08 – There’s a common pattern with SaaS companies building product
04:45 – Close.io is a CRM
- 04:55 – Focused on inside sales team
- 05:12 – Paid monthly
- 05:26 – RPU
- - 05:58 – The average per month is $ 400 to $ 500
07:01 – Total number of customers is between 500 and 5000
07:54 – They are self-funded but they did raised for the business
08:45 – CAP table
09:29 – Raised a little after graduating
- 10.08 – They raised $ 1 million
10:32 – They are not currently in any acquisition talks and not raising capital
- 11:09 – They have all the funds they need
11:35 – There are 2 co-founders
12:00 – Monthly gross churn is horrible
- 12:26 – “Every customer we are losing is a tragedy”
- 12:50 – They don’t share churn numbers
13:11 – Their sales tactics
13:41 – When they launched Close.io, it doesn’t have any record in it
14:15 – People will buy the product even if it’s not sufficient
14:54 – They are now doing a ton of blog posts, public speaking, etc
16:20 – Consistently improve your product
17:22 – Fully-weighted CAC
17:55 – “The most important thing in trying new channels is to determine what a success and failure look like”
19:30 – Steli won’t accept sample acquisition offer
21:00 – Connect with Steli through his blog and Twitter
22:30 – Steli’s podcast has thousands of followers
23:30 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

If you have the solution to your customer’s problem, they will stay longer.
Plan your failure scenarios. Know what to do when you succeed AND fail.
Every business is different. The value of your business is determined by what the market is willing to pay for it, and what you’re able to create in terms of market demand.

Resources Mentioned:

Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to quality of Toptal developers.
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks – The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.
Assistant.to – The site Nathan uses to book meetings with one email.
Blog.close.io – Steli’s blog site
@Steli – Steli’s Twitter handle
Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 463: Close.io More Than $200k MRR, 500 Customers, $400 ARPU with CEO Steli Efti Who Wont Sell for $40M

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders