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OTTAWA, CANADA, NOV 5-6 2025 • ROGERS CENTRE

Fueling Scaleups Since 2016

SAAS NORTH is Canada’s go-to hub for scaling and growing SaaS & AI-Native companies, where founders and investors connect to stay ahead.

Early Bird Sale View 2025 Agenda

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Theme & Focus: Future-Proofing SaaS in the Age of AI

For the first time, SAAS NORTH is launching with a unifying theme, helping founders stay ahead in an AI-driven world. From go-to-market to product innovation, this year’s agenda is packed with real strategies, tools, and frameworks that today’s SaaS leaders are using to adapt, scale, and thrive with AI.

 

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Why Attend SAAS NORTH

Future-Proof Your SaaS In The Age Of AI

Meet Top Investors & Raise Capital To Scale Faster

Learn From Industry Leaders On AI, GTM, & Growth

Founder-Only Sessions With Actionable Playbooks

Unmatched Networking With Top SaaS & AI Innovators

Be Part Of Canada’s Largest In-Person SaaS Community

Why Attend SAAS NORTH?

SAAS NORTH’s Biggest Names

Since 2016, SAAS NORTH has been attracting the biggest names to our stage. Check out our past speaker alumni!

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Tobias Lütke

Founder

Shopify

Tope Awotona

CEO & Founder

Calendly

Katherine Homuth

Founder

Oomira & SRTX

Swish Goswami

Head of Growth & Marketing

Boardy

Neil Patel

Co-Founder

Neil Patel Digital

Stephany LaPierre

Founder & CEO

Tealbook

Mara Reiff

Chief Data Officer & Co-CEO

FreshBooks

Dax DaSilva

CEO

Lightspeed

Jason VandeBoom

Founder & CEO

Active Campaign

Alison Taylor

Co-Founder & Co-CEO

Jane

David Cancel

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Drift

Jason Smith

CEO & Co-Founder

Klue

Sarah Stockdale

Founder

Growclass

Steve Munford

CEO

Trulioo

Kelly Schmitt

CEO

Benevity

Wade Foster

CEO & Co-Founder

Zapier

Sara Cooper

Chief People Officer

Jobber

Canada’s Largest SaaS Community. Your Biggest Networking Opportunity.

No bad LinkedIn pitches. Just real connections that matter.

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Canada’s Largest SaaS Community

For founders.For teams. For investors

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Don’t Just Take Our Word For It

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SAAS NORTH is the best place to learn, scale, and raise capital. If you’re building a SaaS company, there’s no better event to connect with investors and seize funding opportunities.

Neil Patel
Co-Founder, Neil Patel Digital
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The best founders in SaaS and AI come together at SAAS NORTH to tackle the industry’s most interesting challenges.

Andrew McLeod
CEO, Certn
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Each year, SAAS NORTH gathers companies, entrepreneurs, and seasoned industry experts to connect and exchange ideas around one of the most vibrant areas in Canada’s tech ecosystem – SaaS.

Jeff Shiner
CEO, 1Password
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If you are a founder, investor or interested in SaaS, SAAS NORTH is the conference for you. I was impressed by the caliber of attendees, speakers and ideas presented.

Tobi Lutke
CEO, Shopify
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I was very impressed by the quality of the content at SAAS NORTH. This conference is a great learning opportunity for both start-up and scaling companies.

Kelly Schmitt
CEO, Benevity
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SAAS NORTH brings a lot of value to the SaaS ecosystem. You get not only the companies, but also the mentors, financiers and partners that the companies can leverage.

David Ossip
CEO, Ceridian
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I was here last year and it worked out really well. Met a lot of really cool companies, and I’m here for more of that this year.

Tope Awotona
CEO + Founder, Calendly
“

SAAS NORTH was a game-changer. I closed a $3M round and landed $100K in advisory business, all from connections made at the conference. If you attend one tech event in North America, make it this one.

Adrian Salamunovic
Co-Founder, MILLIONS.co
“

SAAS NORTH has seen tremendous growth…This is a great place for SaaS companies to meet others…

Michele Romanow
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Clearco

2025 Sponsors

We accept money in exchange for audience visibility.

Without the brave mid-level marketing managers who convinced their CFOs to give us the money, it would be fiscally irresponsible to run this event.

Become A Sponsor

Sessions hit harder when your whole crew hears them.

This November, you and your team will travel to Canada’s Capital* for a transformative professional experience at SAAS NORTH. Yes, we used the word transformative. It’s a business conference, it needs business words. *For any of our American friends reading this, Ottawa is the capital of Canada, not Toronto.

Early Bird Sale
Regular $1,199

$725*/person

*When you buy 3+ Tech Executive Passes. Early Bird Passes available until September 25th.

Exhibitor Hall Of Fame

We provide booths so you can scan badges like it’s cardio.

Let’s be real — your product deserves more than a cold LinkedIn DM. At SAAS NORTH, you’ll meet decision-makers, demo-gawkers, and just the right mix of “we’re buying soon” energy.
 
Your booth. Your spotlight. Your bragging rights.
Become An Exhibitor

The Latest From SAAS NORTH NOW

Louis Têtu’s 6 Rules For Building SaaS Companies That Last

Louis Têtu, Executive Chairman & Former CEO, Coveo

SAAS NORTH NOW #97

READ MORE

From $1M to $10M: 3 Timeless Lessons for SaaS Growth in 2025

Asia Orangio, CEO & Founder, DemandMaven

SAAS NORTH NOW #96

READ MORE

From Idea to Launch: 4 Founder Lessons From goConfirm’s Peter Carrescia

Peter Carrescia, Co-Founder, goConfirm (formerly Confirm, & originally Qui Identity)

SAAS NORTH NOW #95

READ MORE

5 Tactical Lessons From Simon de Baene’s Bootstrapped SaaS Journey

Simon De Baene, Co-Founder & CEO, Workleap (formerly GSoft)

SAAS NORTH NOW #94

READ MORE

Trust, Not Tactics: 4 Steps Every SaaS Brand Needs to Get Right

Nathan Yeung, Founder, Find Your Audience

SAAS NORTH NOW #93

READ MORE

What the Future of Canadian SaaS Looks Like According to a 2024 Prediction

Chris Arsenault, Partner, Inovia Capital

SAAS NORTH NOW #92

READ MORE

4 Gen AI Lessons Every SaaS Founder Should Learn From TealBook

Stephany Lapierre, Founder & CEO, TealBook

SAAS NORTH NOW #91

READ MORE

Behind the Mask: What Founders Really Need to Hear About Venture Capital

The Masked Investor

SAAS NORTH NOW #90

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Failing Forward: How Setbacks Shape Stronger Founders

Marie Chevrier Schwartz, CEO, TechTO & Peerscale

SAAS NORTH NOW #89

READ MORE

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Hello to Canada’s SaaS Community,

Success stories dominate headlines, but failure is often the unspoken foundation of entrepreneurial growth. At SAAS NORTH, Marie Chevrier Schwartz, CEO of TechTO and Peerscale, took to the stage in a raw, honest and insightful discussion on all things failure—why it’s an inevitable part of the founder journey, how to navigate its emotional and professional fallout, and why setbacks often serve as stepping stones to greater success.

As the founder and former CEO of Sampler, Marie helped revolutionize product sampling for brands like L’Oréal and Kroger. Her experience—marked by both wins and hard lessons—now fuels her passion for supporting Canada’s tech community. Through her work at TechTO and Peerscale, she’s focused on encouraging a culture where founders can discuss challenges openly, learn from each other, and build the resilience needed for successful longevity.

Key takeaways:

  • Failure is not the end—it’s an opportunity to learn, adapt, and move forward with experience.
  • Founders will often tie their identity to their startups, but success or failure in business does not define your personal worth.
  • The entire startup ecosystem benefits when failure is talked about openly, it reduces the stigma and encourages growth.

If you have your own story of “failure” - reach out to us. You may find that sharing it helps you process it.

Founders are often expected to put on a brave face—but the truth is, entrepreneurship is tough. The emotional toll of setbacks, financial strain, and even business closures can be overwhelming and hard to shoulder alone.

That's why it's so important to normalize open conversations about failure. When we create space for honesty and vulnerability, we help founders build resilience, gain perspective, and move forward stronger than before.

Today, inspired by Marie’s insights, we’re sharing a five-step pathway to help founders embrace failure and transform setbacks into future success.

Step 1: Normalize the Experience — You’re Not Alone

“I don't want my legacy to be a failure without any lessons learned.”

When a startup hits turbulence—or worse crashes—the silence that follows can be deafening. Founders often opt to suffer in private, feeling isolated and ashamed. But the truth is, failure is far more common than we think and acknowledge.

Most startups don’t survive past their early years, and even seasoned founders experience tough market rejections, forced pivots and even burnout.

Marie’s message here is simple: failure is part of the path and when we keep it hidden, we only prolong the pain.

Step 2: Separate Your Identity from the Outcome

One of the hardest truths for founders is this: “You are so much more than your company.”

It’s incredibly easy to attach your sense of self to your company. After all, you built it from the ground up. You lived it. But when the business suffers, so too can your self-esteem—unless you make a conscious choice to detach your identity from your performance metrics.

Marie reminds us that there’s personal value beyond business. You’re more than your pitch deck, more than your balance sheet and your value goes far beyond a cap table.

Step 3: Learn from the Loss — Turn Pain into Insight

While failure can be painful, it provides invaluable insights that can lead to better decision-making in the future. Marie believes that “The lessons that you will have learned from your company will allow you to shine into new opportunities.”

Entrepreneurs who embrace these lessons can refine their strategies, improve their leadership skills, and build more resilient businesses in the future.

Step 4: Talk About It Openly — Build Community Through Vulnerability

“If I could be an example of someone who survived through failure, perhaps we as a community of founders could rebound faster. And our roster of Canadian companies that are led by second time, third time founders could get bigger quicker.”

Talking about failure is powerful—not just for you, but for the entire startup ecosystem. When founders share openly, they pave the way for others to feel safe doing the same. Vulnerability builds trust and transparency builds community.

Marie continuously challenged the myth of the lone genius founder by advocating for authenticity in sharing struggles. After all, you never know who might need to hear your story.

Step 5: Reframe the Closure — It's a Transition, Not the End

“What happens in bankruptcy is that one day you have everybody there working together, and then the next day there’s nothing.”

The end of a business is a sudden loss—where your purpose, your schedule, your team, and your identity disappear all at once.

But Marie reminds us that even business closure isn’t the end—it’s just the end of that chapter. Your skills, your insight, your leadership—they’re all still there, waiting for what’s next.

It’s important to remember that every great founder you admire has been through something hard. The difference? They kept going.

Marie Chevrier Schwartz’s call to action is clear: Let’s make space for failure in the founder narrative.

When we talk about the real stuff—the messy middles, the tough endings, the quiet rebuilding—we create a more honest, empathetic, and resilient startup culture.

“There is a lot of empathy out there for you, and if you can fail openly, people will be there to support you.”

And with that support, like Maire, you'll find the strength to move forward. Opening up about your own experiences might be the first step — we're here to listen.

SAAS NORTH is THE Canadian hub for rapidly-scaling SaaS founders and their teams. Learn, network, and grow with Canada’s largest in-person SaaS community at SAAS NORTH.