Close

Close wasn't born from a grand vision—it emerged as an internal side project while Steli and his co-founders were running Elastic Sales. The tool solved a real problem they faced daily: helping salespeople close more deals and communicate better. Unlike many founders who dream of building massive enterprises, Steli's philosophy was different from the start. He realized early that building a small, tight-knit team serving customers he genuinely cared about mattered more than chasing unlimited scale.

Close achieved product-market fit years before this 2020 interview, but Steli describes the subsequent period as the "awkward teenage years" of company growth. The business was no longer a startup in the traditional sense—it was profitable and generating millions in revenue—yet still grappling with the growing pains of becoming more structured. With 45 people spread across 14 countries, Close faced the tension between maintaining scrappy startup culture and implementing the processes necessary for a maturing organization. Steli was candid about this struggle, describing the internal rebellion against "corporate" changes while recognizing their necessity.

Steli's central thesis for Close's sustainability is deliberately choosing the customers and problems worth solving. From day one, Close said no to enterprise deals—a decision most SaaS companies would find financially reckless. But Steli knew he wasn't passionate about enterprise customers, didn't understand their world deeply, and wouldn't enjoy building for them long-term. Instead, Close focused on entrepreneurial, tech-enabled, distributed companies—"the businesses of the future." This choice meant occasionally turning away six-figure deals, but it preserved something more valuable: Steli's genuine enthusiasm for the customers and the problems he was solving.

This philosophy extended to team culture. Rather than launching side projects and spin-off companies within Close (like Basecamp's approach), Steli found that the most talented people at Close were so excited about the core product that no one wanted to champion anything else. He celebrated this focus and encouraged entrepreneurial employees to pursue their own ventures if they wanted to, supporting them as customers and investors—what he called the "Close Mafia."

Steli addressed a core challenge of founder life: the relentless grind. He reframed this by emphasizing that relationships—whether with customers, employees, or advisors—should be built with a 30-year perspective. He shared his philosophy that if you wouldn't want to work with someone for the rest of your life, don't work with them for a single day. This mindset transformed sales from a transactional quota chase into relationship building. He encouraged founders to think of each customer interaction as the beginning of a potential lifelong partnership, not just a deal to close.

Steli was also candid about the CEO burden: difficult problems bubble up to you, and there's often no one above to ask for help. This can create a superhero complex where founders become incapable of asking for support—a mindset he was actively working to unlearn after five years of intentional effort.

By 2020, amid COVID-19's emergence, Close had become a genuinely profitable business with a distributed, passionate team. Steli's focus wasn't on growth-at-all-costs metrics but on sustainability and fulfillment. He modeled what building a company for the long term looks like: turning down transformative opportunities (enterprise deals) to preserve the culture, maintaining relationships as the foundation of the business, and viewing success not as exit value but as the ability to still genuinely enjoy working on the company five, ten, or twenty years from now.