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OTTAWA, CANADA, NOV 4-5 2026 • ROGERS CENTRE

CANADA’S CONFERENCE FOR SAAS OPERATORS NAVIGATING THE AI SHIFT.

Real deployments. Real dashboards. Real operators from Canada’s top SaaS and AI companies sharing what’s working.

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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

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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.

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Don’t Just Take Our Word For It

“

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
“

The best founders in SaaS and AI come together at SAAS NORTH to tackle the industry’s most interesting challenges.

Andrew McLeod
CEO, Certn
“

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
“

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
“

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
“

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
“

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

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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.
 
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top

Hello to Canada’s SaaS and AI Community,

The growth strategies that fueled SaaS in the 2010s and early 2020s no longer deliver the same results.

Attribution dashboards are increasingly unreliable, paid ads are less efficient, and customers no longer want to be followed around the internet. Sarah Stockdale, founder of Growclass and one of Canada’s most trusted growth voices, took stage at SAAS NORTH recently to explain why.

Her message then was clear: whisper marketing is the future.

Key takeaways:

  • Marketing attribution as we knew it has collapsed; relationships and conversations matter more than dashboards.
  • Customers are moving into private communities and DMs, making community-driven commerce the new growth channel.
  • The brands that win will obsess over micro-niches, experiences worth talking about, and “weird” marketing moments people can’t ignore.

When Sarah first shared these insights at SAAS NORTH in 2023, they felt like a wake-up call. Two years later, they’ve become even more relevant. In an era where AI is generating endless content, dashboards are harder to trust, and customers are overwhelmed with noise, the companies that thrive will be the ones bold enough to give their customers something to whisper about. 

The Great Attribution Apocalypse 

Sarah was clear about the challenge:

“Only 4% of iOS users opted in to be tracked… Rest in peace to our marketing attribution. We do not know how people are making their way to us.” 

Traditional attribution models have collapsed under privacy regulations and platform changes. And now, AI-driven search and recommendation engines are adding another layer of opacity, customers discover products through AI summaries, assistants, and recommendations that rarely show up cleanly in analytics. 

The opportunity, Sarah said, is to stop micromanaging spreadsheets and start focusing on relationships you can’t measure but absolutely feel:

“We have to take off our blue fuzzy Patagonia vests, close the Excel spreadsheet and think about marketing a little bit differently.” 

Community-Driven Commerce 

Sarah pointed to her own experience on parental leave. Exhausted and overwhelmed, she ignored paid ads and influencers entirely. Instead, she trusted her group chat.

“I was literally getting all of my information from the group chat… anything you need, group chat.” 

She noticed the same pattern in her Growclass community of 800+ marketers. SaaS buyers weren’t scrolling ads or white papers. They were asking peers: “Just tell me what you use and if you like it.” 

AI may change how information flows, but it hasn’t replaced community. In fact, the more impersonal AI-driven interactions become, the more people turn to trusted peers for recommendations. 

Micro-Niche Domination 

Sarah was clear about the opportunity:

"I want you to think about the smallest segment of the population for whom your product is actually remarkable… something good enough that someone has to remark.” 

This is even more critical in 2025.  

In a world where AI can churn out endless generic blog posts, ads, and campaigns, being “remarkable” is the only moat. The cheapest content is no longer scarce but authentic advocacy still is. 

Experience Over Acquisition 

The ultimate test, according to Sarah, is emotional:

“Would they miss us if we were gone tomorrow?” 

She recalled her time at Tilt, a payments company she scaled internationally before it was acquired by Airbnb. When Tilt shut down, a student wrote a eulogy for the app. That devotion came from building something beloved, not just useful. 

AI is raising customer expectations across industries, instant answers, personalized recommendations, faster service. But meeting expectations isn’t enough. Sarah’s advice remains timeless:

“Word of mouth growth doesn’t work if they don’t have anything to talk about… build something they’d actually miss.” 

Actionable Strategies 

Sarah left the audience with practical approaches: 

  1. The 100 Conversations Rule 
    “We’re having a hundred conversations, not 90, not 10. We’re having a hundred conversations with people who could be in our customer demographic before we do anything.” 
  1. Optimize for Conversations, Not Just Conversions 
    “If you are in the background kind of solving problems for them, but they never really think about you… you are not going to be top of mind when they’re having conversations with their colleagues.” 
  1. Get Weird (Strategically) 
    Sarah praised Smile’s guerrilla campaign: “People notice you’re doing that after a minute, and they get nervous. And so, they take a picture, and they send it to their friends and they post it on social media… that’s weird enough that a lot of people are going to be talking about it.” 
  1. Build Something They’d Miss 
    “How does the experience of using the product and interacting with our team make this person feel? And would they miss us if we went away?” 

The Bottom Line 

Sarah’s closing words in 2023 ring louder today:

“I want you to leave today and release yourself of this micromanaging, pinching-pennies style of marketing. That era is dying, and I want you to be ahead of what’s coming next. I want you to give them something to whisper about.” 

AI has accelerated the collapse of old marketing systems, attribution is murkier, generic content is everywhere, and customers expect more but it hasn’t changed the fundamentals. The companies that thrive are those that: 

  • Build genuine relationships instead of relying on broken funnels 
  • Focus on hyper-specific audiences they can truly delight 
  • Spark conversations in communities they can’t measure 
  • Create experiences people would miss if they disappeared 

SAAS NORTH is Canada’s hub for scaling SaaS and AI companies. Founders, teams, and investors come to learn, connect, and grow with the country’s largest in-person tech community.