How to sell to Founders at SaaS companies in France
Founders of SaaS companies in France are primarily measured on their monthly recurring revenue (MRR). They respond positively to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their growth challenges, particularly around customer retention and scaling. When you can articulate how your solution helps them reduce churn or improve user acquisition, you’ll capture their interest.
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
- high customer churn rates
- increasing acquisition costs
- limited resources for scaling
- integration difficulties with existing tools
The playbook
- 01
Identify churn rates over 10%
Use tools like ChartMogul or Baremetrics to filter SaaS companies with a churn rate above 10%. This indicates they might be struggling with customer retention. Target these companies, as they are likely seeking solutions to improve their MRR.
- 02
Research recent funding rounds
Look for SaaS startups in France that have recently secured funding through platforms like Crunchbase. Founders who have just raised capital are often looking for ways to scale quickly and may be more open to new solutions that promise growth.
- 03
Craft a message around scaling challenges
In your outreach, mention specific challenges related to scaling, such as increasing customer acquisition costs or resource allocation. Reference how your solution can help them navigate these issues effectively, which resonates with their immediate priorities.
- 04
Follow up after product launches
Monitor product launch announcements on platforms like Product Hunt or LinkedIn. Founders are usually focused on ensuring these launches succeed and may be more receptive to discussions about improving user engagement and retention shortly after a launch.
- 05
Address concerns about integration complexity
Be prepared to tackle objections related to integration with existing systems. Founders often worry about the time and resources needed for onboarding new tools. Provide clear, concise information on how your solution simplifies this process to alleviate their concerns.
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
- Tackling churn in SaaS
- Scaling your SaaS efficiently
- Funding and growth strategies
Questions
- Why do founders of SaaS companies ignore cold outreach?
- Founders are often overwhelmed with responsibilities and receive numerous outreach attempts daily. If the message doesn't immediately resonate with their current challenges or priorities, they are likely to overlook it. Personalization and relevance are key to breaking through.
- What are common objections from SaaS founders during outreach?
- Common objections include concerns about the time required for implementation, doubts about ROI, and skepticism regarding the effectiveness of new tools. Addressing these objections upfront in your outreach can significantly improve engagement rates.
- How can I demonstrate value to SaaS founders quickly?
- Focus on providing insights or data that directly relate to their pain points, such as improving customer retention or reducing churn. A concise case study or a relevant statistic can quickly establish your credibility and pique their interest.
- What timing is best for reaching out to SaaS founders?
- The best timing often coincides with product launches or funding announcements. Founders are usually more engaged during these periods as they are actively seeking solutions to support their growth objectives, making them more receptive to outreach.
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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