SaaSiest started in late 2020 as a podcast between two friends who wanted an excuse to talk to interesting SaaS people. That was the entire plan. There was no roadmap, no community strategy, no five-year vision. We just wanted to learn from operators who were further along than we were, and we figured other people might want to listen in.
Then Clubhouse happened, and we ran panel discussions there. Then a Slack community formed. Then we did a small physical event. Then a bigger one. Then we quit our jobs.
SaaSiest 2026 happened on May 5 and 6 at Slagthuset in Malmö, with a pre-event day on May 4. We had around 900 attendees, 39 speakers across 38 sessions, and 874 one-to-one meetings booked through Brella. Those are the numbers. The post-event survey came back with an average satisfaction of 8.8 out of 10 and an NPS of 75, and 87% of respondents told us they’d be back in 2027. We’re proud of those numbers, but the numbers aren’t really the story.
The thing that surprised us most about 2026 is how much it still feels like the original idea. Bigger room, more pink, hugely more logistics, but the same instinct: get smart operators together and let them talk honestly about what’s working and what isn’t. Florian from Ringover put it well in his survey response: “SaaSiest is redefining what a B2B SaaS community event can be. The blend of professionalism, creativity, and carefully crafted moments creates an environment where conversations go deeper and the bar is genuinely raised.”
If anything got more ambitious this year, it was the pre-event day. We ran the SaaSiest Padel Open and a canal tour to give people a way to start meeting each other before the doors opened. We held seven parallel workshops for our CEO and Executive networks in the afternoon, including a first-ever CFO hackathon. And in the evening, we got to host our speakers and network members for dinner at Malmö City Hall, where Victoria Lagnevik from the City of Malmö gave a genuinely good welcome speech.
The program
The two main days were structured the way they’ve always been: keynotes in the Theater, parallel breakouts on the CEO, Revenue, and Product & CS stages, roundtables for smaller-group discussion, and time built in for the conversations that happen in the hallway and over coffee. The SaaSiest Awards capped day one, followed by the party. Day two opened with morning yoga, a run, and the cold plunge (powered by Mana, with donuts waiting at the finish).
AI was the loudest theme on stage, and the most-discussed theme in the survey responses. But the framing that emerged across the talks was more interesting than “AI is here, react accordingly.”
Dave Killeen from Pendo opened the conference with a session on what makes a great product when everyone can build software. Sammeli Sammalkorpi from Sievo opened day two with the lessons from scaling enterprise sales past €100k ACV. In between, Fabian Veit from Make.com talked about what survives when scale breaks everything; Ines Lourenço from Leadfeeder walked through how she actually runs her exec function on AI rather than just talking about it; Johanna YdergÃ¥rd from Lovable described what AI-native marketing means in practice; and Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt did a session called “How to f*ck up your pricing,” which is on-brand for the kind of honest, operator-grade content the community responds to.
The roundtables filled up fast. Topics ranged from “How to AI in Marketing” with Johanna Fagerstedt of Mentimeter, to “Pricing in the AI age” with Krzysztof Szyszkiewicz of Valueships, to “Success in Germany” with Charlotte Altmann, to “GEO and SEO: how to win the LLM search” with Dorothea Gam of Mouseflow.
What kept coming back, both on stage and in the survey responses, was a more grown-up framing of the AI question. A few attendees articulated this better than we could:
“It’s not the level of AI maturity that builds your growth, it’s how much pain your solution is solving for customers, and how much gain you’re adding. That’s true, with or without AI.”
“The next defensible position in SaaS isn’t just AI capability. It’s context. Who knows the customer’s situation well enough to act on their behalf?”
“Start optimizing for decision speed, both internally and externally. How fast can we understand, act, and ship? How fast can your customer go from intent to action? That’s the kind of metric that matters now.”
A few of our own takeaways, stolen openly from attendees and speakers:
The best CRO and RevOps partnerships aren’t built on dashboards. They’re built on trust, candor, and a willingness to disagree before alignment.
AI in GTM is real, but the operators winning with it are the ones who already have clean process and clean data. The shortcut isn’t a shortcut.
Signals, intent, and the buying committee killed the MQL. Louise Alsheimer-Niklasson from Position Green said it clearest on the Revenue stage.
The Nordic and European SaaS community is doing genuinely sharp work right now, and we left with a notebook full of ideas we’re already trying.
What people kept telling us
The most common word in the survey responses, by a wide margin, was “vibe.” Sometimes “energy.” Sometimes “atmosphere.” Same idea. People kept describing the feeling of the place more than they described any specific session. We take that as the strongest signal that the original instinct (community before content) is still right.
Three voices that captured this:
Cornelia Broqvist: “A fantastic lineup of speakers who shared both wins and failures with refreshing honesty. It was a great opportunity to network with peers and offered the perfect balance of high-level strategy and hands-on insights.”
Christian Bjerre Nielsen (uQualio): “The place where you meet your peers and learn from people who are in the same situation like you. The open, relaxed, and professional atmosphere makes it an ideal platform to share and discuss in a way you cannot do at home.”
Rikke Christiansen: “There’s also something reassuring about realising we’re all on the same AI rocket ship, navigating the unknown together, and figuring it out as we go.”
A particular favorite came from Johanna Dungl, a first-timer: “This was my first time at SaaSiest, so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but the event exceeded my expectations big time. I walked away with lots of actionable insights, great connections and a donut. What’s not to like?” Around half of our 2026 attendees were first-timers, so that one matters to us.
The people who made it happen
Almost none of what happens at SaaSiest is us. The deeper truth is that we just happen to know a lot of generous people.
Jessica Winberg, our event producer, and her production team carried more this year than they had to, and the difference showed in every detail. Trine Grönlund on stage as moderator. Slagthuset for the venue and the food (which, year after year, attendees tell us is the best food they’ve had at any conference). Tune AB for the production. Filip Tallner, our partner manager, who quietly makes most of the partner relationships work. The eight volunteers who took on more than we’d have dreamed of asking for.
Our community partner Verdane has been with us since the beginning, when we were two people with a podcast and a Slack channel. Our growth partners Younium and Beefree are joining us across all five 2026 events. Leadfeeder sponsored the party, and Soti’s bar crew kept it going. Every other partner who chose to be part of this, thank you.
And to every speaker, workshop leader, and roundtable host: you make the program. The community shows up for you.
What’s next
The 2026 tour continues. Paris on June 16. Munich on June 18. Amsterdam on October 6. London on October 8. Each one will be a smaller, sharper version of what we do in Malmö, built around the same instinct: peers in a room together, talking honestly about what’s working.
And SaaSiest 2027 in Malmö is already on the calendar. We’ll share dates and program shape soon. If you were here this year, you already know whether you’re coming back. If you weren’t, this is the one to plan for.
Thanks for being part of this.
Thomas and Daniel
