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Close
Company blog · blog.close.io/blogbusinessstartups
Close is the company blog at blog.close.io, writing about business and startups. Since 2013, 28 different Hacker News readers have linked it 122 times, most often “The tech stack behind Close.io's sales communication platform (YC W11)”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-20, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (29) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Close's blog for Steli Efti's practical sales advice: cold outreach, follow-up emails, referral sales, product demos, and a 'not to do' list. Commenters often point to it as a sales learning resource.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 29 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Expert advice on sales, CRM, AI, and growing a small business. Learn practical strategies, playbooks, and insights from the team behind Close.
Most-linked posts?
- The tech stack behind Close.io's sales communication platform (YC W11)3 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-03-12
- B2B referral sales systems – the outbound growth engine most startups never use3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2014-03-06
- How to validate your SaaS idea with the power of hustle2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-01-28
- How To Charge Money For Things That Don't Exist Yet2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-04-29
- The real reason why Y Combinator is dominating the world of startups2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-16
- I fired half my team2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-03-17
- B2G sales: How to sell to governments2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-12-28
- /follow-up2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-12-08
- Engineers vs Sales People: How Engineers can teach them to sell2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-09-25
- /2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-09-17
What Hacker News says?
It's an awesome book. Based on the 1-star review you chose I wouldn't read it, but it's not an accurate representation of what's in the book. Another (more straightforward and simple) method of wanting to do everything is to just have a "not to do list" http://blog.close.io/not-to-do-list
Comment linking /not-to-do-list
on “Ask HN: The “I want to do everything but end up doing nothing” dilemma”Submitted Help me figure out how I lost this bet to an engineer as a story · 193 points
HN discussionWe wrote a tutorial about how we wrote our search for Close.io using elasticsearch and pyparsing: "Sales data search: Writing a query parser / AST using pyparsing + elasticsearch" Part 1: http://blog.close.io/sales-data-search-writing-a-query-parse... Part 2: http://blog.close.io/sales-data-search-writing-a-query-parse...
Comment linking /sales-data-search-writing-a-query-parser-ast-using
on “Elasticsearch 1.0.0 released”Submitted Your SaaS product is too cheap if you never lose customers because of pricing as a story · 142 points
HN discussionI suppose it would be backwards from what you typically experience. Let me try again: You're looking for a piece of software, you need it, and are ready to buy. Let's call it a CRM and the feature you're looking for the ability to add a new contact from the main screen. (It could be anything and any feature, but just as an example) During the demo, you love the software, the people instill confidence, and you can se…
Comment linking /
on “Everything I Wish I’d Known Before I Started Demoing SaaS”Submitted Startup sales negotiations 101 – how to respond to discount inquiries as a story · 140 points
HN discussionre the cold call/mail outreach - 1. You need to be contacting individuals not generic addresses or gatekeepers ('people buy from people') 2. You need to be explaining the value to them or people like them that they can identify with in terms of shared problems (i.e. in the same line of work), not how it helped you. So for example, if you can get the first customer in any way (maybe a friend or freebie), you can make…
Comment linking /manage-any-sales-objection-successfully
on “Learn to sell”Submitted Sales Hiring Guide For B2B Startup Founders as a story · 109 points
HN discussionSteli Efti published a bunch of practical articles online (free!) that I found really easy to understand: http://blog.close.io/b2b-cold-calling-tips http://blog.close.io/5-cold-email-templates-that-will-genera... http://blog.close.io/follow-up-emails http://blog.close.io/how-to-give-product-demos-that-sell http://blog.close.io/how-to-do-referral-sales This net of articles (a bit of a rabbit hole!) is sprinkled with…
Comment linking /how-to-do-referral-sales
on “Learn to sell”Submitted Sweating the UI and UX details: Emails and Email Addresses as a story · 94 points
HN discussionI always like to ask "What will it take for you to become a customer of ours?" The key is to keep following up with questions until you arrive at a point when they say "and yes, then we'd buy" See more about it here if interested: http://blog.close.io/sales-hacking-kung-fu-how-to-virtually-...
Comment linking /sales-hacking-kung-fu-how-to-virtually-close-every-single-customer
on “Why Startups Need to Focus on Sales, Not Marketing”Submitted Fatal Sales Mistakes as a story · 73 points
HN discussionGreat lessons! Regarding making pre-sales, this post is pretty helpful: http://blog.close.io/how-to-charge-money-for-things-that-don...
Comment linking /how-to-charge-money-for-things-that-dont-exist-yet
on “Ask HN: Founders whose startups have failed, where did life take you afterwards?”Submitted B2B referral sales systems – the outbound growth engine most startups never use as a story · 69 points
HN discussionReminds me of Warren Buffett's "Avoid At All Cost" list or Steli's "Not To Do" list: http://blog.close.io/not-to-do-list
Comment linking /not-to-do-list
on “Forget the ‘To-Do’ List, You Need a ‘Stop Doing’ List”Submitted A Crash Course in Sales Hacking and Deal Closing [video] as a story · 59 points
HN discussionFrom the software vendors' perspective, it makes good business sense to call you asap, see: http://blog.close.io/why-you-need-to-call-every-signup-user-... From a customer perspective, ideally that call will help you to save time by: a) figuring out faster if this software is right for you or not b) helping you to learn how to use it the best way possible c) setting this up so you make the most out of your trial. I'…
Comment linking /why-you-need-to-call-every-signup-user-within-5
on “Systematizing Sales with Software and Processes”Submitted The tech stack behind Close.io's sales communication platform (YC W11) as a story · 39 points
HN discussionCheck out this awesome interview with Marc Ende of SeamlessGov ( http://www.seamlessgov.com ) that was released just last month: http://blog.close.io/how-to-sell-to-governments Specifically about B2G sales.
Comment linking /how-to-sell-to-governments
on “Govtech: The $400B Market Hiding in Plain Sight”Submitted Selling to the wrong customers will kill your startup as a story · 37 points
HN discussionY Combinator Sales Summer School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-K2DHi99oI&list=PLb1c0oEEXW... This is basically Sales 101. Lecture by Steli Efti, YC founder of the close.io CRM. Insanely valuable. --- Y Combinator "How To Start A Startup" Sales: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAh6WKBgiE This is held by one of the founder of YC startup Clever, with an emphasis on the earliest stages of sales in a startup. --- T…
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: Best books or videos to get better at sales?”Submitted How to validate your SaaS idea with the power of hustle as a story · 29 points
HN discussionping me if you wanna chat more. maybe I can help: http://blog.close.io/sales-office-hours
Comment linking /sales-office-hours
on “Your SaaS product is too cheap if you never lose customers because of pricing”Submitted How to successfully increase your SaaS prices as a story · 26 points
HN discussionThe best hand on experience I have ever read about firing people due to lack of funding is Steli Efti from Close.io in this blog post : http://blog.close.io/i-fired-half-my-team I have fired people recently and wished I had read that blog post first!
Comment linking /i-fired-half-my-team
on “Ask HN: I'm going to have to lay people off, and want your advice”Submitted Email Integration Done Right as a story · 26 points
HN discussionReminds me of Steli's story of how he followed up 48 times (!) with an VC who went dead. Zero, zipzilch, nada. Response to the 48th email? "Thank so much for following up, I've been crazy busy. Can you come by the office tomorrow 1pm?" (rephrased). He invested. Of course, you have to do this the right way, he laid out a pretty good "follow up plan" in this post: http://blog.close.io/follow-up
Comment linking /follow-up
on “Lecture 19: Sales and Marketing – How to Talk to Investors ”Submitted Conflict resolution 101 for startups as a story · 23 points
HN discussionYes, and you can use sales to reiterate based on feedback to built what people want to some extend too: http://blog.close.io/lean-sales-how-to-validate-your-saas-id... :)
Comment linking /lean-sales-how-to-validate-your-saas-idea-with-the-power-of-hustle
on “Lecture 13: How to Be a Great Founder”Submitted How live blogging a conference got us $1k+ in new $MRR as a story · 23 points
HN discussion
