How to sell to Founders at SaaS companies in Canada
Founders at SaaS companies in Canada are primarily measured on their monthly recurring revenue (MRR). They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of scaling challenges, such as customer churn or onboarding inefficiencies. Showing familiarity with their product's growth stage and specific pain points will increase your chances of getting a response.
Written and maintained by the SoloRiff team, who build outbound software and run outbound with it. The figures below are our own: we measured 559 saas company domains over public DNS on 2026-09-03. Last updated 2026-09-03.
What actually hurts
- customer churn spikes
- inefficient onboarding processes
- low engagement rates
- funding utilization concerns
The playbook
- 01
Identify SaaS companies with declining MRR
Use tools like Crunchbase or PitchBook to filter for Canadian SaaS companies that reported a decline in MRR in their last funding round. This indicates potential issues with customer retention or product-market fit, making them more open to solutions that address these challenges.
- 02
Highlight specific churn metrics
Craft your email to reference industry benchmarks for customer churn rates, especially for similar SaaS companies. Founders are likely to engage if they see you understand the typical churn rates in their niche and can offer insights on reducing them.
- 03
Mention onboarding inefficiencies
In your outreach, point out common onboarding issues that SaaS companies face, such as long time-to-value or high support ticket volumes. Founders often prioritize improving the onboarding process, so addressing these pain points directly can capture their interest.
- 04
Use recent funding events as a hook
Monitor news for Canadian SaaS companies that have recently secured funding. Founders are often looking to optimize their operations post-funding, making this a prime opportunity to introduce solutions that can help them scale effectively.
- 05
Follow up with case studies of similar SaaS growth
If your initial outreach doesn’t get a response, follow up with case studies that showcase how similar SaaS companies improved their MRR through specific strategies. Founders appreciate real-world examples, especially those that mirror their own challenges.
Can saas companies even receive your mail?
We measured the DNS of 559 saas 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: 16.7% of 1–10-person companies against 80.9% of the largest — 64 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
- Reducing your churn rate
- Improving onboarding efficiency
- Funding insights for SaaS growth
Questions
- Why do founders at SaaS companies often ignore cold outreach?
- Founders are inundated with pitches daily, making them selective about responses. They often prioritize urgent operational issues over unsolicited offers, particularly if the outreach doesn't quickly convey a deep understanding of their specific challenges.
- What common objections do SaaS founders have to new solutions?
- SaaS founders frequently cite budget constraints as a primary objection, especially if they are in a growth phase. They may also express skepticism about the ROI of new solutions unless demonstrated with clear, relevant metrics from similar companies.
- How can I get a SaaS founder's attention in my outreach?
- To capture a SaaS founder's attention, tailor your message to address their unique pain points, such as customer retention or scaling challenges. Including insights or data relevant to their specific stage of growth can also make your outreach more compelling.
- What trends are SaaS founders currently focused on?
- SaaS founders are currently focused on improving customer experience, enhancing product features based on user feedback, and optimizing their sales funnels. They are also keen on leveraging data analytics to drive decision-making and reduce churn.
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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