Scaling an enterprise fintech from 0–1 might look easy from the outside—but sustaining growth and building a market leader is another story. In this Go Restive panel, Alloy’s Laura Spiekerman, Ascend’s Andrew Wynn, and Sardine’s Soups Ranjan share exactly how they’ve done it: from founder-led selling and the first sales hire, to dinner series that convert and swag that sparks conversations. Moderated by Restive Ventures Partner Cameron Peake, this is a myth-busting, detail-rich look at the strategies, habits, and mindset that turn ambitious startups into enduring enterprise companies.

B2B sales is always one of the top 3 topics that founders ask us about at Restive Ventures. Well, we heard you loud and clear! Earlier this year we held a panel at our Go Restive event with Andrew Wynn of Ascend, Laura Spiekerman of Alloy, and Soups Ranjan of Sardine about their experiences with sales and growing that part of the org. We got super granular, and it shows that you never stop learning how to sell- even the panelists were swapping techniques!

Some tidbits:

- Founders should stay in the lead sales role until at least $1M ARR - define your repeatable processes

- Avoid “short-term greed” - don’t try to introduce a second product into a sales cycle just because primary sales process is going well

- All of our panelists started with an SMB product before going to enterprise- this helped to refine the product and have cash to navigate the long sales cycle.

All of our panelists said they wished they could have heard this conversation as they were starting their companies. Give it a listen!

This is an audio session that was recorded as part of a Go Restive event in February 2025. As a lead up to the session, Cameron and Ryan discuss the conversation and their takeaways and highlights.

About Restive:

Restive is a seed stage fintech venture capital fund. We are former founders and operators and we aim to be your most helpful investor. We help you bridge the seed to A with capital and key industry partners in financial services to give you what you need to grow.

About The Restive Perspective:

The Restive Perspective is a series from Restive Ventures about our views on the market. We share founder interviews, commentary on the tech and VC industries, and other timely content to advance the discussion about the state of technology and fintech today.

To learn more about Restive and get in touch with us, please visit us at https://www.restive.com/.

fintech, venture, investing, Ryan Falvey, Cameron Peake, Tyler Griffin, VC, podcast, story, personal, background, founder story, founder origins