The Helsinki stop of SaaStock on Tour will set the Nordics and Baltics on fire. We’ve gathered 18+ top Saas founders and investors to speak and share real-life knowhow applicable in the Nordic SaaS world.

Flying over from across the Atlantic we have David Cancel from Drift, Steli Efti from Close.io, Patrick Campbell from Price Intelligently and Ryan Burke from InVisionApp. Then we have local stars Marta Sjogren, Ari Helgason and Jaakko Palaanen. And then last but certainly not least, we have an extraordinary cohort of Estonians, with SaaS extraordinaires Pipedrive and Toggl.

On May 23, Helsinki will be the beating SaaS heart of the Nordics and the Baltics. Join us and grab your ticket now.

David Cancel, CEO and Co-Founder, Drift

To say that David Cancel has a knack for entrepreneurship would be a vast understatement. He has founded a number of startups, brought them to acquisitions and has learned invaluable lessosn. Performable was acquired by HubSpot, where David managed the Product, Engineering and User Experience organisations. It was his approach to organising the product teams that brought them closer to the customers, which arguably contributed to a large extend to HubSpot’s successful IPO. David left HubSpot just a few weeks before it floated on the stock exchange, taking his 20 years of experience and entering one of the most competitive spaces in SaaS — MarketingTech. He founded Drift, a top-notch conversational marketing and sales platform, which is on a path to hypergrowth. It is David’a bravest and boldest attempt at world domination to date. Join us as he tells its story.

Talk: From 0 to 70,000 customers in 3 years — The Drift playbook for Hypergrowth

Steli Efti, CEO and Co-Founder, Close.io

An alumni of Y Combinator and a founder of a number of startups, today Steli Efti is the CEO of Close.io. The platform defines itself as the inside sales CRM of choice for startups and small businesses. Steli’s companies have gotten investments from prominent VCs such as Spark Capital, SV Angel, Start Fund, and Omidyar Networks, as well as angel investors. Flamboyant and outgoing most of the time, Steli is a walking treasure trove for building and sustaining customer relationship and selling the right way.

Patrick Campbell, CEO and Co-Founder, Price Intelligently

The “first boots on the ground” for solving business issues, Patrick Campbell is probably the worlds foremost expert on pricing. In the past months he has offered a pricing teardown to every subscription business you can think of, from Spotify and Netflix to NYTimes and e-signature company DocuSign. He can offer that insight as he has spend the last six years growing Price Intelligently, an innovative price setting tool that helps businesses price their products and services according to their true value. It will be all pricing with Patrick, on and off the stage in Helsinki.

Talk: How to optimize your pricing for growth

Marta Sjögren, Partner, Northzone

With extensive economic and business education under her belt, Marta Sjögren started her professional path as an investment analyst at the venture fund DN Capital. She joined the Swedish-based Northzone in 2012, where she moved from investment manager through principal to partner. Her focus is on SaaS, digital health, and ed-tech. Some of the notable companies in her portfolio are HappyOrNot, Labster, BehavioSec, and Aevy. Marta will sit down with the CEO of HappyOrNot to teardown what it takes to grow a HW-first SaaS business organically.

Talk: Building a HW-first SaaS company organically

Heikki Väänänen, CEO and Founder, HappyOrNot

The entrepreneurial journey of Heikki Väänänen started more than 14 years ago. In this time, he has managed the strategic development and sales operations of six Finnish companies and served as a board member for numerous other businesses. Since 2010, Heikki leads HappyOrNot, a Customer Experience Management platform that he founded. It has proven to be one of the fastest growing startups in Finland. Heikki will join Marta Sjogren in the panel on building a HW-first SaaS.

Talk: Building a HW-first SaaS company organically

Sergei Anikin, VP of Engineering, Pipedrive

Sergei Anikin started his path in software development at Hansabank and Swedbank. He worked at Skype for seven years, where he worked on the development of major projects such as Facebook Video calling and Windows 8 client. At Pipedrive, Sergei is managing the development and infrastructure. He is in charge of leading a team of world-class engineers, which he has grown from 10 to 150. Together with Tiit Paananen, Head of Quality Engineering, the two Pipedrive masterminds will ping-pong their ideas on product quality in SaaS.

Talk: Product quality in SaaS

Tiit Paananen, Head of Quality Engineering, Pipedrive

Since his start in IT more than 20 years ago, Tiit Paananen has worked at noteworthy companies such as Hansabank, Helmes, Skype, and UAV Factory. Prior to joining Pipedrive, he was the Managing Director of Skype Estonia. As the Head of Quality Engineering in the last few years, Tiit makes sure that Pipedrive builds software that people love. Together with Sergei Anikin, the Pipedrive team will share their knowhow in achieving impressive product quality when developing SaaS.

Talk: Product quality in SaaS

Ryan Burke, SVP, International, InVisionApp

The major professional checkpoints of Ryan Burke include leading sales at the social advertising company Moontoast and at the marketing digital intelligence business Compete. Since 2014, he’s been taking care of sales and customer success at beloved digital product design platform InVisionApp. After growing his remote salesforce of three people to more than 70, Ryan became Senior Vice President responsible for the company’s international expansion. He’ll share his knowhow in the panel on selling your product in a competitive environment.

Talk: The art of competitive selling: How to sell your product in a crowded marketplace

Pietari Suvanto, Co-Founder, Vainu.io

Pietari Suvanto developed his professional power during his six years at the media intelligence platform Meltwater Group. In 2014, Pietari co-founded Vainu.io, a Finnish sales intelligence platform based on account insights. The self-funded startup reached 1,000 customers in 2017, as well as the impressive $400K in MRR. This means he knows a thing or two about selling a product in a crowded marketplace, which is what he will speak about at SaaStock on Tour Helsinki.

Talk: The art of competitive selling: How to sell your product in a crowded marketplace

Olli Nokso Koivisto, CEO, LeadDesk

Olli Nokso Koivisto has a long history in the tech world in the Scandinavian region. He was the Business Area Manager at the lean enterprise software company Siili Solutions before joining LeadDesk. Since 2013, Olli has served as the CEO of the Helsinki-based cloud platform for customer outreach and service operations. At our SaaStock on Tour event in the Finnish capital, he will share his experience from selling a popular product in compelling new ways.

Talk: The art of competitive selling: How to sell your product in a crowded marketplace

Jaakko Paalanen, CSO, Leadfeeder

Jaakko Paalanen is known in Finland as a prominent social seller. He sees himself as a B2B SaaS sales and marketing expert. He started out in the sales and marketing of mobile applications, and later on managed the sales operations of the Finnish software company Roidu. Today he leads the strategy at Leadfeeder, which is a sales intelligence startup often referred to as the “Google Analytics for Sales.” Jaakko will join Olli Nokso Koivisto, Ryan Burke, and Pietari Suvanto in the panel on competitive selling.

Talk: The art of competitive selling: How to sell your product in a crowded marketplace

Edward Ford, Marketing Strategist, Advance B2B

For Edward Ford, growth marketing is an insatiable passion that he discovered from his first professional steps. He started his marketing journey at the Finnish company Bitville Oy, where he also eventually took the role of Marketing and Key Account Manager. Edward was the Marketing Manager of Nordcloud before joining Advance B2B. In his keynote at SaaStock on Tour Helsinki, the English-born and Helsinki-based marketing strategist will share his secrets for building a great B2B SaaS brand.

Talk: Unleash your Superpower: How to build a killer brand in B2B SaaS

Ari Helgason, Principal, Index Ventures

After co-founding two startups and studying at Y Combinator, the Iceland-born Ari Helgason entered the investment world at Dawn Capital in London. His focus there was on European and U.S. SaaS and open source companies. Nowadays Ari is a principal at Index Ventures. He will share insider knowledge about growing to an IPO from the kitchen of the venture company, which invested in modern-day tech stars like Dropbox, Facebook, and Trello.

Talk: The journey to an IPO: Dropbox and Zuora investor shares lessons of growth

Roelof Hengst, Director, Europe, Winning By Design

Roelof Hengst is the Director for Europe of Winning By Design. The mission of Winning By Design is to help SaaS businesses design, build, and scale their sales. As Roelof himself says, he brings the Silicon Valley sales approach to Europe. That’s what he will share with during his keynote at SaaStock on Tour Helsinki.

Talk: Science of Sales — Learn how you — as a SaaS Entrepreneur — can approach Sales as a Science and discover the Few Moments That Matter in sales in which you should pursue excellence

Joyce Liu, Principal, Dawn Capital

Joyce Liu started out her career as an investment analyst and data scientist prior to joining the VC Columbia Lake Partners as a founder and Senior Associate. There she managed growth loans for Series A/B European tech businesses. Since 2017, she shines her investment acumen as a principal at the London-based Dawn Capital. She is involved with the firm’s investments in Templafy, Bitmovin, Conversocial, and Crate.io. Joyce will sit down for a panel addressing the eternal conundrum that companies face: to bootstrap or not, and when is the right moment to seek external funding.

Talk: Scaling: bootstrap or rocket fuel? That is the question.

Alari Aho, CEO, Toggl

Alari Aho was once referred to as “the father of Toggl.” Besides an enviable sense of humor, Alari also possesses a strong entrepreneurial spirit. He has founded a couple of companies, before creating Toggl. The Estonian-based productivity software gained significant popularity in its target market in the U.S. Alari will join Joyce Liu to share his insights on bootstrapping and funding, joined by the CEOs of two companies that have been spun-off from Toggle itself: Hundred5 and Teamweek.

Talk: Scaling: bootstrap or rocket fuel? That is the question.

Marit Martin, Co-founder and CEO, Hundred5

Marit Martin is the power lady at the front of Hundred5, a company incubated within Toggl that spun out as a separate product. With a rich experience in marketing and all things digital, previously she was Head of Product at the visual project management software Teamweek, another Toggl spin-off. At Hundred5, Marit is leading the team that is designing a hiring platform. It makes recruiters’ lives easier by helping them make data-driven hiring decisions. She will join Joyce Liu, Alari Aho, and Serge Herkül on the bootstrapping panel.

Talk: Scaling: bootstrap or rocket fuel? That is the question.

Serge Herkül, CEO, Teamweek

Serge Herkül is the recently appointed CEO of Teamweek, the visual project management platform incubated at Toggl. He started out as a software developer and moved on to found his own company, the real-time messaging service Scaledrone. Serge has been with Toggl and Teamweek since 2013. He was the Frontend Team Lead who grew to a Product and Development Lead. Since February 2018, he is at the head of the company. Serge will speak about his views on bootstrapping together with the rest of the Toggl-related speakers, and Joyce Liu.

Talk: Scaling: bootstrap or rocket fuel? That is the question.

To hear and learn from these speakers, grab your SaaStock on Tour Helsinki ticket now. Since we have you in a curiosity mode, find out who are the SaaS champions shining brighter than the Nordic Lights, as well as the VCs supporting the Nordic ecosystem.