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I recently met Steli Efti, founder of Close.io, in Palo Alto, and did a podcast episode with him. Transcript and links below as per the usual.
Sidenote: I listen to a lot of podcasts and have been using Marco Arment’s Overcast app recently to do so. It was the best $5 I ever spent. Give it a whirl.
[Patrick notes: The transcript below has my commentary inserted like this, as usual.]
What you’ll learn in this podcast:
MP3 Download (~80 minutes, ~54MB) : Right-click here and click Save As.
Podcast format: either subscribe to https://www.kalzumeus.com/category/podcasts/feed in your podcast reader of choice or you can search for Kalzumeus Podcast in the iTunes Store.
[powerpress]
Patrick McKenzie: Hi, everybody. I’m Patrick McKenzie and this is the — I don’t even know what this is – episode of the Kalzumeus podcast. Thanks for staying with us.
Keith, unfortunately, can’t make today. He and his wife and daughters are having fun back in Japan, but I am here in sunny Palo Alto, California with a buddy of mine who founded a company. We’ll talk you a little bit about the story later, but he founded a company, which these days, it’s Close.io, a YC funded company. Meet Steli.
Steli: Hey, guys. I’m super excited and honored to be on the podcast, a big fan of it.
Patrick: Steli, can you tell us a little bit about your background? I’m more from the engineering side of the house and you are… not.
Steli: I’m originally from Greece, born and raised in Germany. I’m basically a high school dropout that has no credentials whatsoever, completely unemployable, and never had a real job in my life. I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life.
A lot of times I joke that the entrepreneurial super power that I use to move things forward is the hustle in sales. I love communicating. I love people. I love moving things forward, on the business end of things. I’ve been an entrepreneurial salesperson my whole life.
For the first few years, small businesses, boot-strap businesses back in Europe, and then seven and a half years ago sold everything I had, bought a one-way ticket to come to Silicon Valley, follow the legend of becoming a tech entrepreneur with...
For the full transcript see here.