Sales is Hard: A Tech Startup Story from Actualize
When Muhammed Shabreen and his co-founder set out to build Actualize, he wasn’t chasing a trend. He was trying to fix a deeply personal problem.
As a developer-turned-co-founder, he knew the pain of trying to learn on the job while juggling project deadlines. Keeping up with new technologies, frameworks, and tools was overwhelming, the resources were fragmented. The learning curve was steep and the gap between theory, and real-world use was wide.
Actualize was born from that frustration, a developer-first platform designed to help people learn by doing, not just watching.
But building a better learning experience was only part of the challenge. Selling it was something else entirely.
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Building before selling
In the early days, the Actualize team focused heavily on product, they were obsessed with user experience and determined to make the platform genuinely helpful to engineers. There were no shortcuts, no gimmicks, just hands-on coding environments, instant feedback loops, and real-world tasks that mirrored what developers actually do at work. But even with a compelling product, getting it into people’s hands was not easy, the team underestimated just how hard it would be to reach developers and convince them to try something new. Sales was not second nature to a technical team and that made the go-to-market journey especially humbling.
Go-to-market reality check
Actualize soon learned that the best product doesn’t always win, despite the incredible results their product could give their customers, visibility mattered as did Positioning. Getting the messaging right was essential to reach the right audience.
They tried multiple GTM motions and experimented with pricing, but the real turning point came when they started speaking directly to teams and companies, not just individuals.
By shifting the focus from solo learners to engineering leads and tech teams, they found a clearer use case, developer onboarding, teams were struggling to get new hires up to speed, Actualize became the solution to that problem and that insight changed everything.
Learning how to sell
For a team of engineers, learning to sell was a whole new world. It meant stepping out of product and into conversations, being okay with imperfect pitches and treating sales as another form of user research. Instead of trying to sell the entire vision, they started solving one problem really well, onboarding. By helping engineering managers reduce ramp-up time and improve team confidence, they found traction. Word started to spread in the industry, and slowly, the sales motion became more natural. The product had always been excellent but now, it had a specific place in the workflow.
Lessons from the journey
Actualize is still growing, still learning and still evolving its Go-To-Market strategies, but the journey so far has been shaped by a few clear lessons.
They learned that product alone is not enough, that technical founders need to get comfortable with commercial conversations. Selling is not about scripts, it is about listening, adjusting, and showing value fast.
They also learned that it is okay to change direction when something is not working. GTM isn’t a one-time decision, it’s a process of discovery, like product development itself. Muhammed and his team learned that sales might be hard, but it is not impossible.
Listen to the Podcast
Available on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.
Actualize helps developers learn faster by doing real work in real environments. To explore the platform or connect with Muhammed Shabreen, visit the Actualize website or reach out on LinkedIn.
