Anvil is the Data Company that makes PDFs a breeze
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In this episode of APIs You Won't Hate, host Mike Bifolko sits down with Manget Ng, founder of Anvil, a data company revolutionizing how businesses handle documents. Manget shares his journey from working at companies like Dropbox and Flexport—where he witnessed firsthand the pain of manual PDF generation—to founding Anvil after personally struggling with mortgage paperwork. Anvil simplifies document workflows by using computer vision and LLMs to auto-tag and structure PDF fields, enabling developers to generate, fill, and e-sign documents via a robust, embeddable API. The company has evolved from serving non-technical users to becoming a go-to tool for early-to-growth-stage tech teams. Manget emphasizes Anvil’s mission to treat PDFs as data artifacts, not just static files, and discusses future plans to embed Anvil directly into platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot, build human verification systems to prevent agent abuse, and create a universal data translation layer across schemas. The episode highlights Anvil’s developer-first ethos, transparent pay-as-you-go pricing, and strong open-source contributions. Key takeaways include: 1) Anvil automates PDF creation and data population using AI to tag fields and structure data; 2) The company’s vision is to make PDFs a data-first artifact, not a legacy format; 3) Anvil is expanding into workflow embedding within tools like Salesforce and HubSpot; 4) The platform supports real-time data translation between schemas using AI; 5) Anvil offers generous free tiers and transparent pricing to lower entry barriers; 6) The team is hiring engineers with AI/ML experience to build next-gen features; 7) Anvil’s open-source tools and documentation are designed for developer ease-of-use; 8) The company’s podcast, Build First Buy, explores the strategic decision between building vs. buying tech solutions.
Anvil uses AI and computer vision to auto-tag and structure PDF fields, turning blank forms into dynamic, API-ready templates.
The company’s vision is to treat PDFs as data artifacts, not just documents, with structured metadata embedded directly into the file.
Anvil is expanding beyond PDFs to become a universal data translator, enabling real-time schema conversion across systems.
The platform is designed for embeddability, with deep integrations planned into tools like Salesforce and HubSpot.
Anvil offers a generous free tier (1,000 PDFs, 50 workflows, 50 signatures) to lower entry barriers for developers.
…and 3 more takeaways available in PodZeus
Introducing Manget Ng and Anvil’s Mission
Mike Bifolko welcomes Manget Ng, founder of Anvil, and explores his background at Dropbox, Flexport, and Loom, setting the stage for Anvil’s founding story rooted in personal and professional pain with PDFs.
The Birth of Anvil: From Mortgage Paperwork to a Startup
“It was just like an aha moment where everything clicked together, I think. Hindsight's 20-20 always.”
Anvil’s Developer-Friendly Onboarding and Core Features
Manget walks through the Anvil onboarding process: uploading a blank PDF, using AI to auto-tag fields, and generating a RESTful API endpoint to populate documents with structured data.
The Future of PDFs: Structured Data as the Default
“The PDF becomes an artifact of the process... it's like the internet packets and then there's like the packet that like the average normal layperson would think of as like a packet of PDFs.”
From Non-Technical to Tech-First Customers: Anvil’s Evolution
Manget traces Anvil’s customer journey from early non-technical users (like First Ascent) to today’s tech-focused startups, highlighting how demand for APIs led to a productized, developer-first approach.
“Imagine a world where you could grab a payload of data in any schema and tell us the target schema. And Anvil just automatically translates that data.”
“The PDF becomes an artifact of the process... it's like the internet packets and then there's like the packet that like the average normal layperson would think of as like a packet of PDFs.”
“The PDF becomes an artifact of the process... it's like the internet packets and then there's like the packet that like the average normal layperson would think of as like a packet of PDFs.”
Host
Guest
Anvil
organization
Manget Ng
person
Mike Bifolko
person
Dropbox
organization
Flexport
organization
Build First Buy
media
Salesforce
organization
HubSpot
organization
Loom
organization
First Ascent
organization
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