SaaStock Dublin 2023 – we came we saw, we brought the T-Shirt…

Held at the Royal Dublin Society in October, SaaStock is an annual event that brings together SaaS professionals, entrepreneurs, investors, and industry leaders to discuss, learn, and network within the SaaS ecosystem. The conference typically features keynote speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and opportunities for networking. SaaStock Dublin is known for providing valuable insights into the SaaS industry, trends, and best practices.

We were here for our second year having gained real value for our first visit to the previous year's event in 2022. SaaStock is according to Christoph Janz, Managing Partner, Point Nine Capital...

“The best SaaS conference for founders, execs & investors in Europe, period.”

Here are some of our highlights and insights from the second Blox team's second visit to Dublin, Ireland

So who did we meet up with?

We spent some time with leading industry thinkers and leaders including...

April Dunford

Blox has met up with April Dunford before but it was my first time seeing her in person after, April is a positioning consultant, speaker, and author.

April works with B2B tech companies to ensure that their best-fit customers intuitively understand their product positioning. Her talk on product positioning was the highlight of the event for me. As exhibitors, we were treated to a pre-event presentation at the very impressive headquarters of Zendesk in Dublin city center - just next to the river (a really lovely office, guys).

April's talk distilled everything you need to know about product positioning and the advantages of focusing your effort on defining it for your product before you go to market.

Having listened to April in person, I would strongly advise anyone working in product design or UX to get deeply acquainted with her practical expertise and see one of her live keynote talks or fireside chats in person if you get the chance.

Positioning Is Not A Marketing Exercise. Unlike the 70’s, when you could get away with simply saying 'We try harder', brands today now have to prove that positioning to a skeptical audience" - April Dunford

Essential positioning insights delivered with a welcome side-order of wit - her anecdote about 'slack for lawyers' is well worth a read.

Nathan Latka

"How to Be a Capitalist Without Any Capital" by Nathan Latka is a book I picked up at the SaaStock 22 event last year to read on the plane back to the UK. It's a book that offers entrepreneurial advice and practical strategies for building a business with limited resources or capital.

Won over by Nathan's grin on the cover, but mostly by the fact that it was free (not very capitalist, you may be thinking?), I was impressed with Nathan's humor, disruptive thinking, and genuine insight based on his remarkable business achievements. I ended up reading the whole book on the way back home. There are some refreshingly counterintuitive tips and strategies that show younger minds are more than capable of thinking for themselves.

"Focus on one goal: Wrong. Focus instead on creating a system to produce the outcome you want, not just once, but over and over again." – Nathan Latka

I was lucky enough to meet Nathan in person and another free (and signed) copy this year at the event. I wish Nathan well in his many new business adventures, I think he'll exceed even his expectations.

Sharon Perry-Ferrari

Did you know about your Dark Funnel?!

We didn’t until we met up with scale-up content guru and 'Visibility Accelerator' Sharon Perry-Ferrari at the Nightstock evening event on Monday - the first pre-event day for exhibitors.

Sharon kindly informed me that not everyone feels the need to engage with every post they come across. If you're experiencing views without interaction on your LinkedIn content, it generally indicates that people are observing your content but not taking any visible actions to engage with it.

It’s still well worth posting – people who either don’t have the time or inclination to post still want to consume decent content for their careers and companies, they may well engage with your product or service at a later date when the timing is right or when you have convinced them of your value.

If you're a CEO with limited time to write engaging online content for Sharon it would be well worth your time connecting.

There’s also an interesting article here What Is Dark Funnel In Marketing? by Dexter Low which goes into much more detail.

We discovered our T-Shirts can work the room for us

Apart from a bit of a readability issue on our blue version, our T-shirt designs were a resounding success. How do we know this? Random investors come up to us and give us their cards because they 'We liked your T-shirt.'

Another plus was when sitting to watch a speaker in a crowded room, we realised that everyone behind you can see your slogan while they are watching the talk, marketing automation in real life, marketing automation in real life – Nathan Latka would approve.

Now there ain't no party like a SaaSock Party...

I wonder if any of you reading this article are wearing a pair of these today?

Socks seem to be an essential swag item at these events. Shoutout from the Blox team to all the dedicated, super friendly and inspiring stand team sock stars at:

Navan who Sync travel and expense like magic, Beefree - The embeddable content creation toolkit for SaaS, Compliance leaders Scytale , G-P/Globalization Partners G-P who are a better, faster way to build your global team and Avalara cutting out tax compliance costs, not corners

So what did we think of SaaStock 23?

The Highs

We connected well with investors, customers and fellow SaaS teams. Learned loads from the speakers and workshops, very much enjoyed the 'Craic' as the Irish say at The Temple Bar and the Guinness Storehouse (many thanks to our good friends at Paddle for the latter one).

Most importantly, we had the pleasure of meeting numerous inspiring SaaS beginners, doers, and thought leaders in a well run and attractive event and thanks to our amazing Blox dev team we got to show off new data import and builder modes just in time for our demo to users and investors at the event.

Being to compared to a younger Bill Murray by the taxi driver on the way back to the airport topped everything off nicely for me – and we hadn't even paid him off yet!

The Lows

None to speak of, to be honest, perhaps the weather? After an uncomfortably hot September in the UK, we quite enjoyed the cold and rain. It added to the Christmassy vibe we were seeing around the city (they get this in early!). Perhaps Dublin pub singers could reduce performances of the song 'Wonderwall' by Oasis by 50% or more. We visited three consecutive pubs, and they were all playing the same song as we entered the bar, but apart from that minor quibble, we enjoyed this Irish event even more this year.

Hope all you other SaaStock attendees and exhibitors had as much of a productive and enjoyable time.

Please get in touch if you want to share your event highlights, if you met a member of the Blox team and would like to know more about how you can Supercharge your financial planning and modelling contact me here on

or visit our website at www.blox.so.