How to sell to Founders at Developer tools companies in Netherlands
Founders in the developer tools industry focus on rapid product iteration and customer feedback. They are primarily measured by user adoption rates. To engage them, show a clear understanding of how your solution can streamline their CI/CD processes or enhance observability, leading to faster deployment and improved user satisfaction.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 587 developer tools company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- slow deployment cycles
- user feedback bottlenecks
- integration challenges
- scalability issues
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent funding rounds
Look for developer tools companies in the Netherlands that have recently secured funding. Use platforms like Crunchbase to filter for companies that raised funds in the last three months. These founders are often looking to scale and may be more open to new solutions.
- 02
Analyze product launch announcements
Search for announcements about new product features or updates in the developer tools space. Use tools like Product Hunt or tech blogs to identify companies that have recently launched CI/CD enhancements. Founders are keen to optimize these new features for better performance.
- 03
Craft a message about deployment efficiency
When reaching out, highlight how your solution can reduce deployment times by improving their CI/CD pipeline. Reference specific metrics or case studies related to deployment efficiency in developer tools. Founders respond well to concrete outcomes that can drive user adoption.
- 04
Follow up on user feedback trends
Monitor user feedback trends on platforms like GitHub or G2 Crowd. If a company is receiving recurring complaints about their observability tools, reach out to the founder and offer insights on how your solution can address these specific pain points.
- 05
Leverage community engagement
Engage with founders in relevant online communities such as Dev.to or Stack Overflow. Share valuable insights or answer questions related to API platforms. This positions you as a knowledgeable peer, making them more likely to respond to your outreach.
Can developer tools companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 587 developer tools companies, sampled evenly across company sizes, to see how many authenticate their own email. It matters in both directions: a domain that does not authenticate is a domain whose team is used to mail going missing — and if your own domain is in the gap, yours is the mail going missing.
Publishes a DMARC policy of quarantine or reject — the domain actually asks receivers to act on failures.
The gap is the finding: 27.4% of 1–10-person companies against 94.9% of the largest — 68 points apart. Small companies are where the unauthenticated domains are, and small companies are who most cold outreach is aimed at.
Where does your domain sit?
Same three lookups, run live against your domain. Nothing is stored and nothing is emailed to you.
How this was measured
Company domains were sampled within employee-count bands, then queried over public DNS for SPF (TXT at the apex), DMARC (TXT at _dmarc.) and MX. One domain per company, deduplicated. Anyone can reproduce any single row of this with dig.
DKIM is deliberately absent. A DKIM key lives under a selector that cannot be enumerated from outside the domain, so a company with flawless DKIM under a name we did not guess would be counted as having none. That would measure our guess list, not the industry.
Domains with no MX record are excluded rather than counted as failures — parked and redirect-only domains would otherwise drag every figure down and make the result an artefact of the sample.
Sampled within bands, so this describes the population of companies, not of employees: a 10-person company counts once, as does a 10,000-person one. Each band is at least 60 domains; bands below that are not published. Figures are percentages of the sample, not of the whole industry, and we publish no company names — only counts.
Measured 2026-09-03. Re-measured monthly.
The full census across every industry — sortable, with sample sizes, free to reuse under CC BY 4.0.
Subject lines that fit
- Improve your deployment speed
- Tackle user feedback bottlenecks
- Optimize your CI/CD process
Questions
- Why do founders in developer tools hesitate to respond to cold outreach?
- Founders often receive numerous outreach messages and may prioritize responses based on immediate needs. If the outreach lacks specificity or relevance to their current challenges, they are likely to ignore it. Tailoring your message to address their unique pain points can increase your chances of a response.
- What common challenges do founders face in scaling their products?
- Founders frequently encounter issues related to integration with existing systems, user adoption, and maintaining performance as they scale. These challenges can lead to slow deployment cycles and user dissatisfaction, making it crucial for them to find effective solutions quickly.
- How can I demonstrate value to a founder in developer tools?
- To demonstrate value, focus on specific outcomes that align with their goals, such as reducing deployment times or improving user feedback responsiveness. Providing case studies or examples of how similar companies benefited from your solution can also help establish credibility.
- What triggers a founder to consider new tools or solutions?
- Founders are often triggered to consider new tools when they experience significant user complaints, slow growth, or competitive pressure. Additionally, recent funding rounds can lead them to explore solutions that can help scale their operations and enhance product offerings.
Or have it run itself
SoloRiff does every step above on its own — finds the companies, finds the people, writes each of them individually, and handles the replies. Drop your URL and watch it work before you sign up for anything.
Try it on your site