The SaaS Revolution Show is a weekly podcast that brings insights and tactics from leading SaaS entrepreneurs and operators across the world. Hosted by Alex Theuma, the show is brought to you by SaaStock. You can subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast. Next week’s show marks our 100th episode. For the occasion we have prepared a special SaaS revolution Hour, gathering nuggets from some of our best interviews so far. Make sure you tune in for that.

Can you ask enough times or enough people what it takes to build billion dollar companies? Everyone craves the unicorn status and swears by it as their definition of success but very few know how to get there.

Investors are in a unique position to hold valuable answers. As pattern recognisers, dealing with many companies at the same time, they are best positioned to have some worthwhile answers. We gathered three of them at SaaStock on Tour Paris, a panel, which we are bringing on this week’s episode.

Rachel Delacour, VP Startups at Zendesk talks with Marie-Hortense Varin, Principal at Partech Ventures, Samantha Jerusalmy, Partner at Elaia and Evgenia Plotnikova, Principal at Dawn Capital about what it takes to become a billion $ company and what’s the role of the VC in this, beyond funding the journey.

In their conversation all three investors express hesitation with the term unicorn. That doesn’t come from conservatism but rather a sense of realism for the European market — there are about 60 European SaaS unicorns and 4 IPOs to date. Between the three funds, they have invested in two of those successful exits, namely Mimecast and Criteo. While promising scaling companies abound, there are important things to keep in mind on the road to scaling successfully, which Samantha, Marie-Hortense and Evgenia have picked and share on the panel.

Listen on to hear:

  • While there is no science to becoming a unicorn, there are patterns. What are they?
  • What are the signs a company has unicorn potential
  • What is the role of the VC in helping a company grow to a billion $

Marie-Hortense mentiones in the end, that if your VC isn’t helping you hire your VPs, you should get another VC partner. We will tackle the topic of finding the right VC partner at our upcoming SaaStock on Tour New York event on June 20th. It is your chance to not simply learn how to secure the best partners but also meet them on the day. We have limited tickets left so you will want to grab yours now. As we are approaching the 100th episode of the show, we are offering a special $100 discount on tickets. Just use code nycrevolution100.