Hello to Canada’s SaaS and AI Community,
Two founders walk into SAAS NORTH AI. No, this isn’t the start of a bad joke.
One is building an early-stage AI-SaaS company and figuring out how to scale it. The other is wondering whether technology built for commercial customers could solve problems in defence.
They have the same pass and two days in Ottawa. What they do with them depends on the questions they bring into the room.
Key takeaways:
- Five tracks tackle what scaling looks like now, so you leave with ideas you can put to work.
- PitchFest: AI Edition puts Canada’s emerging AI startups in front of capital and connections that can outlast the pitch.
- The tradeshow floor and evenings create opportunities to meet buyers, partners, hires and collaborators you didn’t arrive knowing.
- DEPLOY gives founders a Day 2 route into how to build, fund and sell in defence, whether you’re exploring the market or already operating in it.
Co-Founder/Producer, SAAS NORTH Conference Editor, SAAS NORTH NOW
They Arrive With Different Questions
Our first founder is building an AI-SaaS company that is beginning to find its footing.
Customers are using the product, and a small team can build faster than would have been possible a few years ago. The harder questions now concern the business: pricing, repeatable distribution, changing economics and whether outside capital would help.
She is attending through Women in SaaS, which helps bring more women founders into a tech ecosystem where they remain underrepresented. Once inside, there is no separate stream; she’s part of the same conference as everyone else.
Our second founder has many of the same questions, but another possibility has entered the picture. The company was built for commercial customers, yet some of its technology could have applications in defence.
The founder isn’t looking for a reason to pivot. They want to know whether the technology solves a real problem in the sector before giving the opportunity more attention.
For most of Day 1, their interests overlap.
Five Ways Into The Same Problem
The five tracks at SAAS NORTH AI circle one question: what does scaling look like now?
Our first founder can move between questions of distribution, product, pricing and capital, hearing from founders including Avery Pennarun of Tailscale, Jahanzaib Ansari of Knockri and Vitalii Dodonov of Stan. Our second founder has reason to be in many of those rooms too; exploring another market doesn’t change the fundamentals of building a company.
Keynotes widen the lens while tactical breakouts bring the conversation closer to decisions founders can make inside their own businesses. Then the agenda gives way to the tradeshow floor.
A product demo turns into a conversation about distribution. Someone from a session makes an introduction. A founder misses the next talk because the conversation, they’re already having is more useful. For our second founder, it may also be a chance to meet someone who understands defence before DEPLOY begins the following day.
With 2,000+ founders and operators in Ottawa, some of the most useful encounters are the ones nobody scheduled.
Capital, Pitches & Conversations
By afternoon, our first founder turns towards funding.
The Capital & Connection Hub brings founders and investors together, while companies actively raising can pursue curated introductions through Capital Corner. At PitchFest: AI Edition, frontier and applied AI companies put their businesses in front of investors and the wider ecosystem.
Watching can be as useful as pitching. The questions expose what founders are being asked to prove: where demand comes from, what makes the product different and whether early traction points towards something durable.
By evening, the formal agenda winds down, but the conversations continue through receptions, happy hours and parties. An introduction from earlier in the day finally gets more than five minutes.
Thursday is when our founders take different routes.
Day 2: DEPLOY
Our first founder returns to SAAS NORTH AI for another day of sessions, meetings and conversations worth continuing.
Our second heads towards DEPLOY, the new defence and dual-use summit built into Day 2.
DEPLOY brings founders together with defence-literate investors, commanders, officials and companies already operating in the sector. Some attendees are already selling into defence; others, like our founder, are still deciding whether it is their market.
The program follows three questions: Build. Fund. Sell.
Does the technology solve a problem someone in uniform actually has? If it does, who understands the financing needs of a dual-use company? Then, how does a smaller company realistically begin selling into defence?
The founder may leave wanting to pursue the opportunity or decide their commercial market deserves the focus. Both are useful answers.
Two Days, Two Outcomes
By Thursday afternoon, our founders have shared a venue, crossed the same tradeshow floor and sat in some of the same rooms without having the same conference.
One has spent two days working through the next stage of an AI-SaaS company, moving between product, distribution and capital while building relationships with founders and investors.
The other has had access to those same company-building conversations while using DEPLOY to investigate a market that wasn’t part of the original plan.
Across five tracks, keynotes, tactical sessions, the tradeshow floor, PitchFest, Capital & Connection, networking and DEPLOY, there isn’t one prescribed way through SAAS NORTH AI.Two founders walk into SAAS NORTH AI. What do you need to walk out knowing?