The Startup Chat with Steli and Hiten

Steli Efti and Hiten Shah bring two very different but complementary perspectives to The Startup Chat. Efti is the CEO of Close, a CRM built for salespeople, and he thinks about everything through a sales and revenue lens. Shah co-founded KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg, and he approaches problems from a product and analytics angle. Together they have over 530 episodes and a 4.8-star rating from 201 reviews. The format is simple: two founders talking through a single startup topic per episode. No guests, no scripted segments. Just Steli and Hiten riffing on things like whether founders should be doing their own sales, how to manage yourself before you try to manage others, and whether the SaaS market is getting too crowded. Episodes tend to be concise, usually under 30 minutes, and they get straight to the point. What makes the show work is that both hosts are actively running companies while recording. They are not retired executives looking back. They are dealing with hiring decisions, product launches, and customer complaints in real time, and that urgency comes through. The advice is grounded in current experience, not theory. Topics range from email management to pricing strategy to co-founder dynamics. If you are in the early stages of building a SaaS business or any startup where sales and product decisions matter daily, this show gives you two experienced operators thinking through the same problems you are facing.