SoloRiff

How to sell to Founders at Developer tools companies in United Kingdom

Founders in developer tools companies are primarily measured on user adoption rates. They respond positively to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their product's scalability challenges, especially regarding CI/CD processes. Highlighting how your solution can enhance their observability capabilities will catch their attention, as it directly relates to their goals of improving user experience and performance.

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

  • user adoption challenges
  • scalability issues
  • deployment bottlenecks
  • integration complexities

The playbook

  1. 01

    Identify recent funding rounds

    Filter for developer tools companies in the UK that have recently secured funding. Use databases like Crunchbase or PitchBook. Founders are often more open to partnerships when they have fresh capital to invest in scaling their operations.

  2. 02

    Highlight scalability pain points

    Craft your message to address the common scalability issues faced by new tools in CI/CD. Discuss how your approach can alleviate deployment bottlenecks. Founders are keen on solutions that enhance their product’s performance and reliability.

  3. 03

    Mention industry events

    Reference any upcoming tech events or meetups in the UK where they might be speaking or attending. This can create a natural segue for a conversation. Founders often appreciate outreach that acknowledges their participation in the community.

  4. 04

    Acknowledge their existing tech stack

    In your outreach, show familiarity with the tools and platforms they currently use. This can include popular CI/CD tools or observability frameworks. Founders will respond better if they see you understand their existing environment.

  5. 05

    Suggest a specific time for a call

    Propose a specific date and time for a call that aligns with their schedule, ideally after a product launch or major update. This shows respect for their time and increases the likelihood of securing that meeting.

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.

1–10 employees
27.4%
11–50
44.1%
51–200
58%
201–1,000
77.3%
1,000+
94.9%

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

  • Funding and scalability insights
  • Enhancing your CI/CD pipeline
  • Let’s talk observability solutions

Questions

Why do founders in developer tools ignore outreach about analytics platforms?
Founders may ignore such outreach if they perceive analytics as a secondary concern compared to immediate product development needs. They often prioritize features that directly impact user experience over backend analytics, especially in early stages.
What challenges do founders face when scaling their developer tools?
Founders frequently encounter challenges related to user onboarding and retention. As their tools gain traction, ensuring that new users can easily adopt and effectively use the product becomes critical, often requiring additional resources.
How can I get a founder's attention with a cold email?
To capture a founder's attention, your email should immediately address a specific pain point they face, such as deployment speed or user feedback loops. Personalizing your approach based on their recent activities or product updates can also increase engagement.
What role does community engagement play for founders?
Community engagement is vital for founders as it helps them build brand loyalty and gather user feedback. They often rely on community insights to guide product development and prioritize features that resonate with their user base.

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.

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