I enrolled in an engineering degree (Electrical Engineering) thinking I’d never have to sell. The first time I did, I felt like a complete failure—honestly, like an idiot. That sting turned into an obsession. For the past two years I’ve been learning to sell while also shadowing the sales processes of 100+ companies—from napkin-stage to >$100M in revenue. Here are the five lessons I wish I’d had on day one.
A quick backstory
- 2020: first “real” job as a software developer. I went all-in on becoming a strong engineer, and within a year I was working full-stack.
- YC startup: the jump to a YC-backed startup forced me to do a bit of everything, but I still lived inside engineering.
- 2022: I co-founded my first company. That’s when the sell-or-die reality hit.
- 2023: at Makers Fellowship I worked with Andrés Bilbao (cofounder of Rappi). He can sell. I got a front-row seat to a very, very execution-heavy sales motion.
- 2024–2025: I co-founded Torrenegra Organization with Alexander Torrenegra and supported 100+ companies, while talking with dozens of B2B sales leaders. I watched what actually works.
1) Nail your ICP — and sell painkillers, not vitamins
It sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most of us waste time pitching to people for whom our product is a vitamin (“nice to have”) instead of a painkiller (“I need this now”).
If your smart band counts steps and calories, it’s a vitamin for most people. For the fitness-obsessed, it can be a painkiller. Sell to the people already in pain. Don’t burn cycles trying to “evangelize” those who aren’t.
Litmus test: can your buyer describe the problem in their own words before you pitch?
2) Sell benefits, not features
We love listing features: dark mode, dashboards, step counters. Buyers care about the outcome.
“Counts calories” → helps me hit my weight goal.
“API integration” → saves my team 10 hours/week.
Translate features into measurable, personal wins.
Rewrite exercise: For every feature, write the sentence “so that you can ___” and finish it with a concrete result.
3) Get to no—fast (give explicit permission)
A massive time sink is trying to convert people who were always going to say no. Your job is to surface that answer quickly.
Use a permission line:
“I don’t want to keep pinging you. If now’s not the right time, just tell me ‘no’ and I’ll stop. If it is, what would make ‘yes’ possible?”
You’ll either get a clean “no” (great, move on) or the real blocker (“budget in 30 days”, “legal needs X”). Both are progress.
4) Daily pipeline discipline — being a pain is a virtue
Most teams say they want more sales, but when you ask about their pipeline, there’s silence. At Makers Fellowship, the discipline was borderline uncomfortable: daily check-ins on new opps, in-conversation, closing soon, and closed.
It was stressful—and incredibly effective. When you review the pipeline every single day, you hit targets more often than not.
Minimum daily dashboard:
- New opportunities opened
- Meetings booked
- Deals in commit/next steps + owners
- Objections / blockers by stage
- Closed won / lost (with reason)
5) Obsess over acquisition channels — do things that don’t scale
Google Analytics won’t tell you what actually tipped a human to contact you. Ask manually and get specific:
- “How did you first hear about us?” (channel)
- “What exact action made you reach out?” (the post, the talk, the DM, the event)
- “What part of that caught your attention—the copy, the image, the offer?” (message)
Go from superficial (“LinkedIn”) to granular (“this post, this line, this offer”). Then double down on what truly moved them—even if it means unscalable work (DMs, 1:1 intros, small events) until you see a repeatable pattern.
Put it to work (today)
- Write your ICP on one page: title, pains, budget, trigger events, “jobs to be done.”
- Rewrite your top 5 features into benefits with metrics.
- Add the “permission to say no” line to your follow-ups.
- Stand up a daily pipeline standup (15 minutes, same time, same metrics).
- On every intro or onboarding call, ask the three attribution questions above and log them.