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Hello to Canada’s SaaS and AI Community,
As SAAS NORTH celebrates its 10th year, it’s a chance to reflect on an industry that’s evolved dramatically and the fundamentals that still hold true.
One of those fundamentals: the leap from $1M ARR to the next stage of growth.
While there’s no disputing that it’s a milestone worth celebrating, it’s also where growth often stalls, costs climb, and earlier strategies can stop working.
That’s exactly the challenge Asia Orangio, CEO and Founder of DemandMaven, addressed at a previous SAAS NORTH. She shared a growth troubleshooting framework, grounded in customer interviews, journey mapping, and problem-first positioning, that’s just as relevant today.
Reaffirming that in a decade of disruption, the basics don’t fade; they compound.
Key takeaways:
- Jobs-to-be-Done is still your most powerful strategic lens
- Interviewing 10 customers can unlock millions in growth
- Mapping the customer journey reveals the gaps that matter most
- Growth doesn’t always require more spend, it often starts with doing less, better
Co-Founder/Producer, SAAS NORTH Conference Editor, SAAS NORTH NOW
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Asia Orangio helped a SaaS company 10x its revenue, without adding more marketing spend. Her approach? A deceptively simple, three-step process that puts your customer at the center of every growth decision.
Keep reading to learn how this framework continues to deliver results in today’s market and why it might be exactly what your SaaS business needs right now.
1. Start With Jobs-to-be-Done
Asia opened with a question that’s more important in 2025 than ever: What job are your customers hiring your product to do?
“People are hiring your products and your solutions for jobs, and our job is to figure out what that job is.”
She drew from Clayton Christensen’s well-known “milkshake” story, not for novelty, but to drive home a truth many SaaS companies overlook. It’s not about the product itself. It’s about the outcome customers want.
“When Clayton came along, he said, wait a second, why are people hiring milkshakes? What are they trying to accomplish?”
If you can’t clearly define the job your customer is trying to get done, you’ll struggle to build the right features, deliver relevant onboarding, or close the right users.
In 2025 (when new AI tools launch daily) relevance is your edge and Jobs-to-be-Done is still one of the most powerful ways to uncover it.
2. Talk to Ten Customers
Next, Asia addressed one of the most underrated growth tactics: direct customer interviews.
“You actually just need 10 interviews. If you have a thousand customers, if you have 20 customers, you actually just need to talk to 10 people.”
It’s not about sample size; it’s about depth. Her point was simple: qualitative insights beat surface-level analytics when it comes to uncovering meaningful growth opportunities.
She backed it with hard data:
“Companies that do [customer research] see 54% greater return on marketing investment, they see an 18 times faster average sales cycle, 3.5x greater revenue from customer referrals, 56% more cross-sell and upsell revenue.”
“Teams that do 10 interviews a month [see] two to three times faster growth than teams that don’t.”
Especially now, with AI summarizing insights at scale, it’s easy to think you know your customer. But speed doesn’t equal accuracy. You still need to talk to people.
3. Map the Journey, Find the Gaps
Once you understand the job and have real customer feedback, Asia’s next step was to map the customer journey, simply and practically.
“Customer journey mapping doesn’t have to be a super complicated process or experience… You can actually do a very simple spreadsheet and call it a day as long as you get it done.”
She emphasized that most companies have clear friction points but fail to see them. That’s where the biggest opportunities are hiding.
“The gap is the opportunity.”
She shared a client case study that followed this framework. Without increasing marketing spend, the company saw a 20% increase in connection rate, a 3x lift in new signups, a 4x increase in MRR, and eventually, 10x total growth.
“We did this without more marketing… We did this just focusing on what we had. We didn’t spend more on ad dollars.”
In today’s leaner operating environment, this kind of capital-efficient growth is exactly what most SaaS teams are looking for.
Canada’s top SaaS + AI founders take the stage this November. Big ideas. Bold pitches. Live at SAAS NORTH.
Why This Still Works in 2025
The context has changed since 2022. Budgets are tighter. AI has flooded the market. Customers are more cautious and more informed. But the fundamental principles of growth haven’t changed.
“Customers see [products] different now than they did pre-panorama. And what happened was we were operating under old pre-panorama assumptions.”
SaaS companies once led with features. Now, it’s about clarity and time saved.
“They didn’t really care that we had tonnes of features. They cared that the features were designed to help them save time.”
Put simply, Asia’s framework works because it brings your focus back to what matters: the customer’s outcome, not your feature roadmap.
Her Three-Step Framework:
- Interview your customers using Jobs-to-be-Done
- Map their journey from discovery to retention
- Find the gaps and close them
If you’re stuck between $1M and $10M ARR, this is a process worth repeating quarterly because growth isn’t random, it’s often blocked by something obvious you’ve just stopped seeing.
The Takeaway for Canadian SaaS Founders
In 2025, product-market fit isn’t just about love for your product, it’s about winning consistently in a crowded market.
- Don’t underestimate your competitors.
- Know what it’s costing you.
- Build systems that help you win, again and again.
This is the kind of clarity we bring to SAAS NORTH every year. Join us this November to connect with the founders, teams, and investors who are scaling SaaS and AI with focus.
Because fundamentals? They still win.
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.