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

10 Years. One SAAS NORTH Community.

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

Join thousands of SaaS innovators in Ottawa, Nov 5-6, 2025, and gain strategies to future-proof your SaaS in the age of AI.

SUPER EARLY BIRD SALE! Become A Sponsor

Why Attend SAAS NORTH

Future-Proof Your SaaS In The Age Of AII

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?

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

Michele Romanow
Co-Founder & Executive Chairman, Clearco

2024 Sponsors

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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.

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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!

View Speakers

Tobias Lütke

Founder

Shopify

Tope Awotona

CEO & Founder

Calendly

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.

Stay Up To Date

Canada’s Largest SaaS Community

For founders.For teams. For investors

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Meet the Steering Committee

SAAS NORTH is built by the SaaS community, for the SaaS community. Our Steering Committee brings together the sharpest minds in the industry to ensure every session delivers value.

View 2025 Steering Committee

Kevin Kliman

CEO & Founder

Humi

April Hicke

Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer

Toast

Donal Greene

CEO & Founder, Trustmatic

Certn

Marie Chevrier Schwartz

CEO

TechTO

Michael Buhr

Executive Director

C100

Manuela Barcenas

Head of Marketing

Fellow.app

Tomas Kolafa

Global Manager, Digital & Product Marketing

Arcadis

Michelle Brooks

Chief People & Culture Officer

Security Compass

Neil Grunberg

Managing Partner

Storytime Capital

Krista Skalde

Operating Partner & Chief Talent Officer

INOVIA

Like this headline, everything is better with more SaaS.

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.

Super Early Bird Sale!
Regular $1,199

$599*/person

*When you bring 3+. Super Early Bird passes available until June 20. Don’t miss out!

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

How to Scale Enterprise Sales Within Your Startup

Rob Crnkovic (Co-Founder & CRO, CapIntel), Vitaly Pecherskiy (Co-Founder & COO, StackAdapt)

SAAS NORTH NOW #88

READ MORE

4 Tips For Managing A High-Performance Team As A Startup Or Remote Company

Michelle Brooks (Chief People & Culture Officer, Security Compass) & Mike Gozzo (Chief Product Officer, Ada)

SAAS NORTH NOW #87

READ MORE

Post-Seed Strategies For Startups & Founders

Janet Bannister, Founder & Managing Partner, Staircase Ventures & Kaylee Lieffer, Co-Founder & CEO, Blanka

SAAS NORTH NOW #86

READ MORE

Continuing A Mission: How Passion Became Martin Basiri’s Driving Force For Entrepreneurial Change

Martin Basiri, Founder & CEO, Passage

SAAS NORTH NOW #85

READ MORE

How To Take A First Principles Approach To Using Capital For Growth

Kevin Kliman, Co-Founder & CEO, Humi

SAAS NORTH NOW #84

READ MORE

How Plaiced Leveraged Community To Scale Globally While Bootstrapping

Kaaveh Shoamanesh, CEO, Plaiced

SAAS NORTH NOW #83

READ MORE

How Thinking Of Customers As Investors Drives Startup Growth

Mehrsa Raeiszadeh, Co-Founder, MintList

SAAS NORTH NOW #82

READ MORE

How To (Successfully) Ask Beta Customers To Use Your Product And Give Feedback

Renae Farough, Co-Founder & CEO, Kicker

SAAS NORTH NOW #81

READ MORE

Tips For Balancing Growth Experiments With A Social Enterprise Mission

April Hicke, Co-Founder & Chief Growth Officer, Toast

SAAS NORTH NOW #80

READ MORE

top

Hello to Canada’s SaaS Community,

First off, a big shout out to everyone that attended our 9th annual SAAS NORTH conference in Ottawa this month. We got to hang out with almost 1800 SaaS leaders and the broader tech ecosystem. New informative and entertaining features like the Masked Investor and Founders Feud were a big hit! Check out some of our highlights here. If you missed out, watch for our upcoming releases of full-length main stage sessions for the first ever this year, coming to an inbox near you!

Growth experiments need to deliver a potential outcome and give you data to both understand what happened and inform next steps. This is something April Hicke lives and breathes, as co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Toast, a career and mentorship platform for women in tech. Speaking with SAAS NORTH, April explained her approach to growth experiments within a social enterprise.

Key takeaways:

  • Growth experiments can start with intuition first, but track as much data as possible to validate it.
  • When doing research with existing customers, focus on ensuring you still understand the problem—or if it has evolved.
  • You’ll never have perfect growth data; instead, it’s about continually collecting to get directionally correct signals you can use to make decisions.

Building a two-sided marketplace is no small feat. Just ask April Hicke, co-founder and Chief Growth Officer at Toast, a platform that connects women with career opportunities in tech.

Founded in 2022, April joined as co-founder to help build out the organization’s growth muscle.

Speaking with SAAS NORTH, April explained her approach to growth experiments.

Your problem is your secret

When April connected with Toast founder Marissa McNeedlands, she immediately resonated with Toast’s founding story.

Marissa started her career in talent acquisition; she noticed women were sorely underrepresented. When she inquired why that was happening, her talent acquisition team told her women simply weren’t applying. Even as she moved into the tech world herself, the representation (and pay) gap persisted.

Step 1: Name your dependencies

Start by naming what you want and what’s blocking it.

A few examples:

  • You want to fundraise to grow, but investors want to see traction first.
  • You want to add customers, but prospects demand new features first.
  • You want to apply for grants, but providers demand you have revenue first.

You may also have multiple of these problems—run a process for each, rather than combining them.

This led to Marissa “tapping” women and encouraging them to apply for roles—when she did that, she learned what became Toast’s unique insight.

“We know women don't approach the job hunt the same way that men do,” said April. “We know that women need community and support around them. So how can we scale that?”

Starting with a passion for the problem led to Toast’s double-sided marketplace approach.

The B2C community offers premium support and career resources, such as transparent conversations about salaries and access to HR lawyers. But there’s also a B2B side where Toast acts as a recruiting agency for companies looking to diversify their talent pools.

Focusing on the problem also led to another insight: Toast would be a social enterprise that always puts its mission at the forefront.

“We want to drive social change,” said April. “We want to increase gender equity in tech. So growth in that aspect means change.”

Growth means balancing intuition and data

As Toast continues to grow—for example, planning its first in-person summit in 2024—here’s what April is focused on.

Validate your gut with data: Both April and Marissa thought events would be a great way to bring more women into their community and network with potential B2B clients.

This proved correct, but data showed it wasn’t quite in the way April initially thought.

“We thought [hosting] events would be really great for brand awareness,” said April. “And 60% of our clients came in last year from events. However, only 34% of those were events we hosted. So we were able to pivot—we don't actually need to host events. It's better that we attend events.”

Track everything, even if you have to do it manually: Sometimes someone will connect with you at an event, follow you on LinkedIn, and then decide to join the community two months later. But you won’t know any of that if you don’t ask.

While not a perfect science, Toast asks every community member and B2B client where they heard about the organization and what made them join or reach out. This, said April, gives the team strong directional data about which channels are delivering. 

Research the evolution of the problem: When you have customers, you know there’s a problem and people are willing to pay to solve it. But in your customer discovery, you have to ensure that’s still the case.

“Has [the problem] evolved?” said April. “Are there new problems? Essentially we need to ensure that the problem that we’ve sought out to solve is still a problem.”

Operationalize the unexpected good: The majority of Toast’s members said they joined because they wanted community in their career. But beyond Toast’s existing community on Slack, April said survey respondents began making their own connections and doing 1:1 coffees or other meetups.

Rather than worrying about these ad-hoc connections, April is now looking to operationalize it with apps like Donut on Slack.

“Right now it's something that's happening organically, but if there's a way that we can make it so that people that aren't doing that [start to make connections], maybe that's a value add.”

Everything is an assist

While tracking growth experiments is critical for both success and resource management, you will never have the complete picture.

As Chief Growth Officer, April is less worried about specific data and more about ensuring the company’s growth ecosystem is chugging along nicely. That might mean someone connects at an event and doesn’t convert for a year—as happened with one client. It could also mean someone who finds them on social media first before trying out an event—a common occurrence.

Regardless, it’s about continuing to tweak, iterate, and capture all the data you can.

“It's really tough to measure that ROI,” said April. “The best thing to do is continue to track all of those leads and build out that process so that you can kind of take a look at, ‘If you've got this pipeline open, how much is each deal worth?’”