The slippery slope of narrow VC investment mandates
Our latest SaaS Half Full episode uncorks a conversation that every B2B SaaS founder and marketer needs to hear. We sat down with Michelle Erikson, VP at Straylight Capital, who brought real stories, perspective and Midwest realness to a topic not talked about enough:
👉 The so-called commoditization of entrepreneurship — and why it’s BS.
According to Michelle (and we agree), what founders build cannot be distilled into a template, checkbox or rigid VC mandate. She says plainly that founding a company requires “skill, talent, resources, blood, sweat and tears… and you cannot create a commodity out of that.”
Heck. Yes.
When SaaS brands look the same, marketing becomes the differentiator
Michelle shared that at Straylight, her team sees the same thing we see at PANBlast daily:
Founders often try to contort themselves into an “investable box,” and in doing so… they start looking like everyone else.
That’s where marketing steps in; not as a nice-to-have, but as a valuation driver.
Michelle says that by the time a SaaS company hits ~$8–10M ARR, the brand needs to grow up. No more scrappy placeholder logos. No more “we’ll fix the website after this sprint.” As she puts it:
“There has to be a professionalization of the brand… one of the first things investors see is your website and your value proposition.”
Translation: If your brand is confusing, elementary or just meh… investors will assume the same about your product.
Investors vibe-check in the first five minutes
One of our favorite moments? When Michelle got real about the first-meeting energy investors pick up instantly when speaking to B2B SaaS founders.
She’s not looking for a flawless pitch deck. She’s looking for… a human. And specifically, one who:
✔ Invites questions
✔ Isn’t rigid or defensive
✔ Actually wants a collaborative partner
✔ Knows their numbers (seriously)
If that first call feels like a monologue? Big yikes. As Michelle says, “If I don’t get to ask a question, I’m pissed.”
Marketers: YES, investors want to hear from you
One of the biggest gems in this episode is Michelle saying explicitly that she wants marketers in diligence meetings.
Why? Because marketing owns:
- The story
- The voice
- The competitive edge
- The plan to scale GTM
- The proof that the company understands its buyer
“I always want to hear from the marketers… I want to hear about the brand, the plan for scaling go-to-market, how you show up, how you land customers.”
Durability > Hype: The new currency of B2B SaaS
Michelle predicts the word of the future will be durability, with top prospects having resilient models, sticky retention, sustainable economics and built to withstand whatever the market throws at them.
Sound familiar? B2B SaaS marketers who survived the last three years of chaos already know durability is the new flex.
Listen to the full episode with Michelle Erikson here on SaaS Half Full and contact PANBlast to learn more about SaaS PR.