How to sell to IT Directors at Developer tools companies
IT Directors in developer tools companies are primarily measured on system uptime and deployment efficiency. They respond to outreach that demonstrates a clear understanding of their current CI/CD pipeline challenges and how your solution can enhance their observability tools, ultimately leading to faster and more reliable deployments.
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
- system downtime complaints
- inefficient deployment processes
- lack of real-time data insights
- integration issues with existing tools
The playbook
- 01
Identify recent CI/CD tool changes
Search for companies that have recently published updates or changes to their CI/CD tools. Use platforms like GitHub or tech blogs to find announcements. Target these companies, as they may be looking for solutions to optimize their new tools.
- 02
Highlight observability gaps
Research common observability pain points in the developer tools space, such as lack of real-time insights or integration issues. In your outreach, mention these specific gaps and how addressing them can lead to improved performance and less downtime.
- 03
Leverage industry-specific events
Identify upcoming developer tools conferences or webinars where IT Directors will be attending. Mention these events in your outreach to create a sense of urgency and relevance, suggesting a brief call to discuss insights from the event.
- 04
Address integration concerns directly
When reaching out, be prepared to discuss potential integration issues with existing systems. Many IT Directors are concerned about compatibility; addressing this upfront can reduce objections and increase your chances of securing a meeting.
- 05
Follow up after tool deployment
If a company has recently deployed a new tool, follow up within a week. IT Directors may be reflecting on their deployment experience and could be open to discussing solutions that enhance their current setup, particularly around observability.
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
- Optimizing your CI/CD pipeline
- Enhancing observability tools
- Addressing deployment challenges
Questions
- Why do IT Directors in developer tools ignore cold emails?
- IT Directors often receive numerous cold emails that fail to address their specific challenges or provide clear value. Many emails lack relevance to their current projects or don’t showcase an understanding of their CI/CD processes, leading them to disregard outreach.
- What common objections do IT Directors have?
- IT Directors frequently express concerns about integration with existing systems and the potential disruption to their current workflows. They may also doubt the ROI of new tools, especially if they are already facing budget constraints and resource limitations.
- How can I make my outreach more relevant?
- To increase relevance, tailor your outreach by referencing specific tools or technologies the IT Director is currently using. Show familiarity with their recent projects and highlight how your solution can address their unique challenges in the developer tools space.
- What timing is best for reaching out to IT Directors?
- The best time to reach out is shortly after significant tool updates or deployments, as IT Directors are likely evaluating their current systems. Additionally, contacting them before or after industry events can also yield higher engagement, as they are in a mindset of exploring new solutions.
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