Mang-Git Ng had zero sales background when he started Anvil. He spent 25 minutes agonizing over each cold email, barely got any responses, and attracted the wrong customers who demanded hand-holding for $5 a month. Selling SaaS without sales experience felt impossible.
In this episode, Mang-Git reveals how he went from sweating over outreach emails to closing 7-figure ARR deals. You will learn how a VC sales mentor transformed his founder-led sales approach, why Anvil stopped selling to financial services, and the unconventional event tactic of selling SaaS without sales experience - by pitching the people working the booths instead of the attendees.
Anvil is a paperwork automation platform for product and development teams. The company generates 7-figure ARR with a team of 13 and has raised $10M in funding.
š Key Lessons
- š¤ Selling SaaS without sales experience requires unlearning engineering instincts: Mang-Git had to stop perfecting outreach emails and start asking discovery questions instead of pitching solutions.
- š Wrong customers cost more than no customers: Early non-technical buyers demanded 30-40 hours of founder time per deal for $5 a month with no path to profitability.
- šÆ A sales mentor accelerates startup sales faster than books: Gradient Ventures connected Mang-Git with a coach who taught him how to structure deals, compressing months of trial and error.
- š Engineer-written content outperforms marketing copy: Anvil's growth came from technical tutorials written by their engineers, which ranked well and attracted qualified buyers who were learning to sell SaaS solutions.
- š¢ Sell to the booths, not the attendees, at conferences: Product managers staffing booths are a captive audience - and often the exact technical buyer you need when selling SaaS without sales experience.
Chapters
- Introduction
- Favorite quote - pushing through when you're destroyed
- What Anvil does and who it serves
- Size of the business - 7-figure ARR, 13 people, $10M raised
- Origin story - frustrating mortgage process in 2017
- Validating the idea without building anything
- First product - naive assumptions about paperwork
- Learning from demanding early customers
- Attracting the wrong customers and the $5/month problem
- SEO and content marketing as the #1 growth channel
- What types of content work for developer-focused products
- The free e-signature mistake that attracted the wrong users
- Using LinkedIn for organic brand awareness
- Why cold emailing stopped working
- In-person events and selling to the people at the booths
- Two types of customers - self-serve vs enterprise sales
- Learning to sell with no sales experience
- Getting over yourself and finding a sales mentor
- Lightning round
Resources
