“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” – Artistotle

That’s how I felt after last Friday’s event, a collaboration across Canadian SaaS companies, CEOs, and financial industry experts, to discuss the impact of Covid-19 on Canadian SaaS company retention and churn. Summary below. Watch the recording here.

Allan Wille, co-founder and CEO of Klipfolio, whose mission it is to help everyday people succeed with data, outlined how Klipfolio is adapting to some temporary reductions in retention and new demand among its SMB customers, while staying focused on the long term. Klipfolio is pro-actively managing cash, and doubling down on annual subscriptions which bring more stability than the month-to-month version.

Paul Vallée, founder and CEO of Tehama, shared that Tehama is benefiting from some significant tailwinds given they provide rapid deployment of secure virtual workspaces for remote workers. In fact, it’s meant pivoting product development significantly to account for new customer use-cases resulting from the mass work-from-home requirement.

Pablo Srugo, Principal at Mistral Venture Partners, noted that we’re experiencing a forced trial of technology tools on a global scale that will have lasting impacts, including mass adoption of work from home tools even among traditional laggards, and adoption of Automation, Digitization, AI/ML technologies that reduce cost and risk. Venture firms like Mistral are supporting portfolio company CEOs/CFOs to extend their runways, and staying on the lookout for investment opportunities.

Darryl Duncan, Commercial Account Manager at RBC, whose division serves SaaS companies, observed bright spots among companies using creativity to repurpose their capabilities to support Covid-19 related needs, such as a transportation company now using its maintenance facility to sanitize other companies’ vehicles.

Lastly, I shared results from the inaugural SaaSCan project – a survey of 50 Canadian SaaS companies, distributed through 7 channels, which uncovered their anticipated retention and churn impact from Covid-19, as well as actions they’re taking in response. In a nutshell, SaaS company retention and churn expectations are most closely co-related to the industry vertical they serve, and the size of their average Annual Contract Value (ACV).