LinkedIn Network Monetization Playbook: 15,243 Connections, 12 SaaS Ideas, Services, and Outreach

2. Network Anatomy: Who Are These 15,243 People?

Seniority Distribution

Key stat: 4,180 people (27.4%) are Founders or C-Level. This is not a normal LinkedIn network. This is a founder network.

Top 15 Industry Clusters

Geography

~50–60% France (based on French titles, French company names), ~35–45% English-speaking international, ~5–10% other European. The network is almost exactly 50/50 French/English in the founder and CTO segments. A small but notable Mercado Libre cluster (33 connections) gives Latin American presence.

Network Age

91.9% of all connections were made in 2024 or later. Only 1 connection predates 2023. Current velocity: ~25 new connections/day in February 2026. This network is very young and very actively growing.

Top Company Clusters (3+ connections)

Freelancers & Consultants: 979 people (6.4%)

Full-stack devs, DevOps specialists, fractional CTOs, AI consultants, marketing freelancers, designers. This is the service buyer pool.

Non-Tech People: 256 (1.7%)

74 in art/creative, 36 in construction/architecture, 35 journalists (including David A. Graham at The Atlantic, reporters at Le Monde, Les Echos, Forbes France, Sifted, POLITICO), 30 coaches, 11 real estate, 11 healthcare, 9 lawyers, 8 food industry, 3 politicians (including a French minister and a deputy).

3. The Cold DM Framework (Jason Levin’s Playbook Applied)

Jason Levin went from a $12/hr Home Depot self-checkout cashier to a $25,000/month ghostwriter for venture capitalists — entirely through cold DMs on Twitter. His framework, from The Art of the Cold DM, distills to 8 principles. Here is each one applied to this specific 15,243-person LinkedIn network.

Principle 1: Just Send the DM

Levin’s biggest insight: “I had no idea you could just send a DM on Twitter and make a new friend until Justin sent me one. Mindblown.” The barrier is mental, not practical.

Application: You have 15,243 connections who already accepted your request. They already said yes to you once. The social proof barrier is gone. You are not cold-messaging strangers — you are messaging people who chose to be in your network. The friction is near zero. Most people in a network this size never message 99% of their connections. The mere act of sending any message puts you ahead of every other connection sitting silently in their feed.

Daily target: 7 DMs/day. Not 50 (spammy), not 2 (too slow). At 7/day, you cover your highest-priority 140 contacts in 20 days. That is 140 conversations started from a standing start.

Principle 2: Respond to Public Signals

Levin got his first freelance client because a marketing director tweeted she was looking for writers. He responded to an explicit signal of need.

Application: Before DMing anyone, spend 10 minutes scrolling LinkedIn and look for:

• “We’re hiring” posts — they have budget and need. DM with: “Saw you’re hiring a [role]. Before you commit to a full-time hire, have you considered a fractional engagement? I do [X] for startups at your stage.”
• “We just launched” posts — they need feedback, distribution, early users. DM with: “Congrats on the launch! Just tried it — [specific observation]. Happy to give more detailed feedback if useful.”
• “We just raised” posts — they have money and are about to spend it on tools and services. DM with: “Congrats on the round! Quick question — how are you planning to handle [problem your SaaS/service solves] as you scale?”
• “Looking for recommendations” posts — the easiest possible opening. Just answer their question. No pitch needed.
• Complaints about tools/processes — someone venting about their monitoring setup, their deploy pipeline, their investor update process. DM with: “Saw your post about [pain]. I’m exploring building a tool for exactly this. Would love to hear more about your situation.”

Who to watch in this network: The 2,733 founders and 1,447 C-levels post the most. Set up LinkedIn notifications for the 20 most active ones. Their posts are free market research and DM openings.

Principle 3: Have Something to Show

When Levin sent his first DM, he had been blogging for 5 months with fewer than 200 readers. He had a body of work to point to. She “liked his work” — meaning he had work to show.

Application: Before sending a single DM about any of the 12 SaaS ideas or 5 services below, have at least one of these ready:

• For SaaS ideas: A landing page (even a Carrd or single HTML page) explaining the problem and collecting email signups. Not a working product — a page. Takes 30 minutes.
• For services: A portfolio page or 2–3 case studies. Even if the “case studies” are personal projects, they show you can do the work.
• For relationship-building: Your public body of work (blog, journal, GitHub, Palmframe itself). When someone clicks your profile after your DM, what do they see? It should answer “this person builds things.”

Specific play for this network: You already have palmframe.com, a public build journal, a GitHub with real projects, and a personal site. This is more than most people have. Lead with it. Every DM signature can end with “palmframe.com” — not as a pitch, but as proof you are a builder, not a talker.

Principle 4: Each Success Powers the Next DM

Levin used his first freelance client’s portfolio pieces to DM founders of bigger startups. Each rung of the ladder enabled the next.

Application: Track every positive response. When someone says “cool idea” or “I’d use that,” screenshot it (with permission). After 5 positive responses, your next DM becomes:

Hey [Name],

I’ve been talking to founders about [problem], and 5 out of 7 told me they deal with this daily. Quick examples: [Founder A] at [Company] said “[quote].” [Founder B] at [Company] said “[quote].”

I’m building a tool to solve this. Would your experience match theirs?

This is social proof in DM form. Each conversation makes the next one stronger. After 20 conversations, you have a mini market research report that makes every subsequent DM nearly impossible to ignore.

Principle 5: Cold DMs Build Real Relationships, Not Just Transactions

Two people Levin met through cold DMs (Greg Isenberg and Justin Fineberg) will be at his wedding. The relationships outlasted the initial professional context.

Application: The “Just Say Hi” category (Part 3 below) is not a nice-to-have. It is the most valuable long-term play. The ROI of “Hey, I admire what you’re building at [Company], no ask” is invisible but enormous. Here is the math:

• Send 50 “just saying hi” messages.
• 20 will respond (40% — high because there is no ask).
• 5 will become ongoing conversations.
• 1–2 will become real relationships over the next year.
• Those 1–2 relationships will generate more value than 100 cold pitches.

Who to do this with in this network: The YC founders, the AI frontier lab people, and the journalists. These are the “no ask” tier. Never pitch them. Just be interesting, be interested, and be consistent.

Principle 6: Get a Platform That Gives You DM Leverage

As a reporter at The Defiant (90,000 readers), Levin had a legitimate reason to DM any founder: “I’m writing an article about [X] for our 90K readers. Can I ask you a few questions?”

Application: You need a “reason to reach out” that is not “I want to sell you something.” Options available right now:

• “I’m writing a blog post about [topic]” — your blog exists. Use it. “I’m writing about how startup CTOs track events in their apps. Can I quote you?” People love being quoted. The blog post is real. And you get market research as a byproduct.
• “I’m doing a 100-day build challenge” — you literally are. “I’m documenting my 100-day build challenge publicly. Day [X] I’m exploring [topic]. Your experience with [X] would be a great data point.”
• “I’m collecting data for a report” — this playbook itself is a report. “I analyzed 15,243 LinkedIn connections and found that 27% are founders. Writing a piece about what that says about the French tech ecosystem. Would love your perspective.”

Each of these frames transforms a cold outreach into a value exchange: you are not asking for their time, you are offering to feature their expertise.

Principle 7: Volume and Consistency Over Perfection

At The Defiant, Levin wrote 4+ hours/day and pressed publish almost every day. He learned that “publishing > perfection.”

Application: Do not spend 20 minutes crafting the perfect DM. Spend 2 minutes per message. The templates in this playbook are designed for copy-paste with light personalization (swap [Name], [Company], and one specific reference to their work). Here is the workflow:

1. Morning (15 minutes): Open LinkedIn. Pick 7 people from today’s list. Open their profiles in tabs. For each: copy the template, swap the brackets, send. 2 minutes each = 14 minutes.
2. Midday (5 minutes): Reply to any responses. Never let a response sit more than 12 hours.
3. Evening (10 minutes): Comment on 3–5 posts from people you plan to DM tomorrow. When you DM them the next day, your name is already familiar.

That is 30 minutes/day. 35 DMs/week. 140/month. 1,680/year. Your network has 4,180 founders and C-levels. At this rate, you reach every single one of them in under 2.5 years — while only spending 30 minutes a day.

Principle 8: Let the Flywheel Spin

Levin’s formula: Content creation + cold DM networking + reputation building = self-reinforcing demand. Eventually, people come to you.

Application to this network: The flywheel for this specific network looks like this:

1. Build in public (daily Palmframe journal, weekly LinkedIn posts) → establishes reputation as someone who ships.
2. Send discovery DMs (7/day from the lists below) → generates conversations, market data, and social proof.
3. Publish what you learn (blog posts, data reports, build-in-public updates with real quotes from conversations) → attracts inbound interest.
4. Inbound interest generates more connections → grows the network, which feeds more DM targets.
5. Repeat.

The compounding effect: by month 3, your DMs will reference “I’ve talked to 200+ founders about this” instead of “I’m exploring an idea.” That is a completely different message. The flywheel made it different, not your writing skills.

The Anti-Patterns (What Levin Would NOT Do)

Implicit in Levin’s story are the things that kill cold DMs. Applied to this network:

• Do NOT pitch in the first message. Every DM template below is a question, not a sales pitch. “How do you handle X?” not “I built X, buy it.”
• Do NOT send the same message to everyone. French CTOs get a different message than English DevRel people. The templates below are segmented by audience for this reason.
• Do NOT send a DM without looking at their profile first. 30 seconds of scrolling their recent posts gives you a personalization hook. “Saw your post about [X]” turns a template into a conversation.
• Do NOT follow up more than once. One bump after 5–7 days. If they still don’t reply, they are not interested. Move on. There are 15,242 other people.
• Do NOT treat LinkedIn DMs like email. Keep messages under 5 sentences. No subject lines. No “I hope this finds you well.” Write like you text a friend, not like you write a cover letter.
• Do NOT DM someone without having engaged with their content first. The evening routine (comment on 3–5 posts from tomorrow’s DM targets) is not optional. It is the warm-up that turns a cold DM into a warm one.

4. Part 1: Sell Them a SaaS (12 Ideas with DM Outreach)

Each idea follows the Jason Cohen playbook: talk to 20 people before writing code. The DMs below are not sales pitches — they are discovery conversations. You are asking if the problem exists, not selling a solution. For each idea, the network segment is identified, the DM is ready to copy-paste, and specific people to message are listed.

Idea 1: Founder Dashboard (Real-Time Event Tracking)

What: A single screen showing everything happening in your startup — signups, payments, deploys, errors — in real time. One API endpoint, one dashboard.

Who in the network: 911 CTOs at startups + 2,593 founders/CEOs. Total addressable within the network: ~3,500.

Why they care: Every founder checks Stripe, Vercel, Sentry, and Slack separately every morning. Five tabs. They know this is stupid but have no alternative that isn’t overengineered.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

Quick question: how do you keep track of what’s happening in your app day to day? Signups, payments, deploys, errors — do you check each tool separately or have you found a way to centralize it?

I’m exploring building a single real-time dashboard for this. Genuinely curious how founders handle it right now.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Question rapide : tu fais comment pour suivre ce qui se passe dans ton app au quotidien ? Inscriptions, paiements, déploiements, erreurs — tu checkes chaque outil séparément ou t’as trouvé un moyen de tout centraliser ?

J’explore l’idée de construire un dashboard unique en temps réel pour ça. Vraiment curieux de savoir comment les fondateurs gèrent ça aujourd’hui.

First 20 people to DM:

1. Kévin Bée — Solteo, CTO (FR)
2. Thibault Denoyelle — DYNATRUST, CTO (FR)
3. Cyril Carbonnier — beycome, CTO (FR)
4. Loïc Castel — Safercy, CTO (FR)
5. Arnaud Bichi — Linkpick, CTO (FR)
6. Raphaël Toledano — Cartage, CTO (FR)
7. Alexis Moren — Jobissim, CTO (FR)
8. Romain Masclef — Trevee Finance, CTO (FR)
9. Macgill Davis — Rize, CEO (EN)
10. Alon Akirav — Wedge, CTO (EN)
11. Daniel Grant — fern, CTO (EN)
12. Luca Iaconelli — IGLU, CTO (EN)
13. Arvid Lagerqvist — Favora, CTO (EN)
14. Keir Volas — Certific, CTO (EN)
15. Giorgio Di Rosa — Tap2AI, CTO (EN)
16. Atul R — Filed, CTO (EN)
17. Antony Marion — noways, CTO (EN)
18. Alexandre Paschutine — Kabaun, CTO (FR)
19. Wassim Rekik — Terracall, CTO (FR)
20. Benoît Bourdel — Primo, CTO (FR)

Idea 2: Fractional CTO Matching Platform

What: A marketplace connecting non-technical founders with fractional CTOs for 5–10 hours/week. Not a full-time hire, not a dev agency. A named CTO who joins your standups and reviews your PRs.

Who in the network: 530 freelancers/consultants (supply side) + 2,733 founders (demand side). Fabien Ducher literally has “CTO as a Service” as his title. Multiple people list “Freelance CTO,” “CTO de Transition,” “Fractional CTO.”

DM (EN) — to non-technical founders:

Hey [Name],

When you started [Company], how did you handle the tech side? Did you find a technical co-founder, hire a dev agency, or figure it out yourself?

I’m exploring whether there’s demand for fractional CTOs — someone who does 5–10 hours/week, joins your standups, reviews code, makes architecture decisions. Not a full-time hire, not an agency.

Curious if that’s something you’ve ever looked for.

DM (FR) — to freelance CTOs (supply validation):

Salut [Prénom],

Je vois que tu fais du CTO freelance / de transition. Comment tu trouves tes missions aujourd’hui ? Bouche à oreille, plateformes, LinkedIn ?

J’explore l’idée d’une plateforme qui matche des fondateurs non-tech avec des CTO fractionnels. Ton retour d’expérience m’intéresserait beaucoup.

First 20 people to DM:

1. Fabien Ducher — CO-CTO, “CTO as a Service” (FR, supply)
2. Antoine Delplace — Freelance CTO (FR, supply)
3. Guillaume Thirion — CTO de Transition (FR, supply)
4. William RAGOT — Freelance CTO & Pentester (FR, supply)
5. Michael Thain — Findr SAS, “Tech strategist and advisor for CTO and Tech leaders” (EN, supply)
6. Macgill Davis — Rize, CEO (EN, demand)
7. Emmanuel Greve — Fleetiz, CEO (FR, demand)
8. Léo Cohen — Certif-ia, CEO (FR, demand)
9. Ricardo Ruano — Zeyo, CEO (EN, demand)
10. Violette Taquet — Eunomart, CEO (FR, demand)
11. Julien Lemarchand — MOBIUSpack, CEO (FR, demand)
12. Ilan Rainier — OKS, CEO (FR, demand)
13. Valentin GIGOU — Altiory, CEO (FR, demand)
14. Yves Trocheris — Même Pas Cap!, CEO (FR, demand)
15. Axelle Ayad — Human Care, President (FR, demand)
16. Jeremy Buch — Moonky, CEO (EN, demand)
17. Jordane Allouche — DanIT, CEO (FR, demand)
18. Ludovic Simon — Timbré, Fondateur (FR, demand)
19. Guillaume Haren — Semaura, CEO (FR, demand)
20. Youness LEMRABET — Everysens, CEO (FR, demand)

Idea 3: LinkedIn Warm Intro Tool

What: Upload your LinkedIn connections CSV, get a map of who knows who, find the shortest path to any person. “You want to reach the CTO of Datadog? You have 28 connections there. Here are the 3 best paths.”

Who in the network: Every single founder and sales person. 2,733 founders + 418 marketing/sales people. Anyone who does outbound. Also the 147 VCs (they live on warm intros).

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

When you need to reach someone specific — a potential customer, a hire, an investor — do you ever dig through your LinkedIn connections to find a mutual connection who could introduce you?

I’m exploring building a tool that maps your LinkedIn network and finds the shortest warm intro path to anyone. Curious if that’s a real pain point or something you’d just do manually.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Boris Golden — Partech, General Partner (EN)
2. Guru Chahal — Lightspeed, Partner (EN)
3. Alexis Robert — Kima Ventures, GP (FR)
4. Macgill Davis — Rize, CEO (EN)
5. Emmanuel Greve — Fleetiz, CEO (FR)
6. Ethan Lagorce — 0FLAW, SDR (FR)
7. Luigi Fernandez Ortega — Receiptor AI, Growth Lead (EN)
8. Nassim Charifi — Ringover, Key Account Executive (FR)
9. Markus Palm — Featurebase, Growth (EN)
10. Yann Lacaze — Argil (YC S24), Growth & Operations (EN)

Idea 4: Self-Hosted Status Page

What: A status page (like Instatus, Statuspage.io) that you host yourself. “docker compose up” and you have a public status page for your SaaS. No monthly fee, your infrastructure, your domain.

Who in the network: 365 DevOps/infrastructure people + 911 CTOs. Anyone running a SaaS product.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

Do you have a public status page for [Company]? If so, what do you use? Instatus, Statuspage.io, something custom?

I’m thinking about building a self-hosted status page — one command to deploy on your own infra, no monthly fee. Curious if that resonates or if the existing tools are good enough.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Vous avez une status page publique chez [Company] ? Si oui, vous utilisez quoi ? Instatus, Statuspage.io, un truc custom ?

Je réfléchis à construire une status page self-hosted — un seul déploiement sur ta propre infra, pas d’abonnement mensuel. Curieux de savoir si ça te parlerait ou si les outils actuels suffisent.

First 10 people to DM:

1. James Dam Tuan Long — nurture., Head of Platform Engineering (EN)
2. Adrien Carreira — Hugging Face, Head of Infrastructure (FR)
3. Thomas Lambert — BeReal, Head of Infrastructure (FR)
4. Liam Bigelow — Fly.io, Senior Platform Engineer (EN)
5. Dan OBoyle — bolt.new, Staff SRE (EN)
6. Ludovic Logiou — Qwant, VP Infra/SRE (FR)
7. Nicolas Szalay — Lydia, Head of Infrastructure (FR)
8. Romain Monceau — Malt, Platform Engineering Manager (FR)
9. Samuel Rose — Supabase, Platform Engineer (EN)
10. Rehan van der Merwe — Resend, DevOps Engineer (EN)

Idea 5: Dev Hiring Assessment Tool for French Startups

What: A take-home coding challenge platform specifically for the French startup ecosystem. Real-world tasks (not leetcode), automated grading, candidate experience that doesn’t suck. Think CoderPad but designed for startups hiring their first 5 engineers.

Who in the network: 238 HR/recruitment connections + 911 CTOs who do hiring. French tech is booming and everyone is fighting for talent.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Comment vous recrutez vos dévs chez [Company] ? Vous faites des tests techniques ? Si oui, c’est du leetcode, du take-home, du live coding ?

Je réfléchis à construire un outil d’évaluation technique pensé pour les startups — des exos proches du vrai travail, pas des algorithmes théoriques. Ton retour m’intéresserait.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Benjamin Watrinet — Mistral AI, Talent Acquisition (FR)
2. Kevin Tran — Inato, Engineering Manager (FR)
3. Anthony Boucher — Tenacy, Head of Engineering (FR)
4. Julien Plée — Signaturit Group, Group CTO (FR)
5. Lénaïc GROLLEAU — SAYNA, CTO (FR)
6. Charles Ozanne — Algoan, COO (FR)
7. Keyne Michel — HelloWork, Cofounder (FR)
8. Alya Yacoubi — Silae, VP AI (FR)
9. Julie Droin — Eskimoz, Head of Product (FR)
10. Duc-Phat Huynh — GE HealthCare, Senior SWE Manager (FR)

Idea 6: Startup Metrics / Investor Update Tool

What: A tool that auto-generates monthly investor updates. Connect Stripe + your database, it generates MRR, churn, LTV, CAC, and formats it into a clean email you send to your investors. No more spreadsheet gymnastics every month.

Who in the network: 2,733 founders who have (or will have) investors + 147 VCs who receive these updates and wish they were more consistent.

DM (EN) — to founders:

Hey [Name],

Do you send monthly investor updates? If so, how do you put them together? Manual Stripe exports + spreadsheet? Some template?

I’m exploring building a tool that connects to Stripe and your database and auto-generates the update — MRR, churn, highlights, lowlights. Ready to send. Curious if that would save you real time.

DM (EN) — to VCs:

Hey [Name],

As an investor, how consistent are the portfolio updates you receive? Do most founders send them monthly? Do the formats vary wildly?

I’m exploring building a tool that auto-generates investor updates from Stripe + database data. Standardized format, one click. Curious if this would be something you’d actively recommend to your portfolio.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Boris Golden — Partech, GP (EN, VC)
2. Andrea Guariglia — Dawn Capital, Investor (EN, VC)
3. Benoît Descoqs — 115K, Principal (FR, VC)
4. Aurore Lanchart — OSS Ventures, Investment Director (FR, VC)
5. Chloe Timsit — Kima Ventures, Partner (EN, VC)
6. Olivier Rull — Caravel, Co-Founder (FR, founder)
7. Julien Bellemare — Catalog, CEO (FR, founder)
8. Martin Nicoud — Gustav, CEO (FR, founder)
9. Anne-Sybille Pradelles — Formance (YC S21), CEO (FR, founder)
10. Stan Girard — Quivr (YC W24), Cofounder (FR, founder)

Idea 7: GDPR Compliance Autopilot for SaaS

What: A tool that scans your SaaS codebase, identifies personal data flows, generates your GDPR documentation (privacy policy, DPA, data processing records, cookie consent), and keeps it updated. The “Vanta for GDPR” but without Vanta’s price tag.

Who in the network: Every European SaaS founder (>2,000). GDPR is a tax everyone pays and no one enjoys. The French founders especially — DPAs and CNIL compliance are a constant headache.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Comment vous gérez le RGPD chez [Company] ? Vous avez externalisé à un DPO, fait appel à un cabinet, ou vous vous débrouillez en interne ?

Je réfléchis à construire un outil qui automatise la compliance RGPD pour les SaaS — scan du code, génération de la doc, mise à jour continue. Ton retour d’expérience m’intéresserait beaucoup.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Benoît Hecfeuille — HOLOGAME, Cofounder (FR)
2. Selim Decamps — Milou, Co-Founder (FR)
3. Paul Barbotin — Helean, Co-Founder (FR)
4. Brieuc Villette — Kesako, Co-fondateur (FR)
5. Charles Banon Guiot — Storen, Co-fondateur (FR)
6. Clément Bouillier — Superindep.fr, Cofondateur (FR)
7. Florent PELLET — Superindep.fr, CTO (FR)
8. Olivier Brengues — ComptaSecure, Co-Founder (FR)
9. Jonathan Delmas — Strat37, CEO (FR)
10. Raphaël Vullierme — Waniwani, Co-Founder (FR)

Idea 8: Changelog / Release Notes as a Service

What: Auto-generate beautiful public changelogs from your Git commits and PRs. Connect GitHub, it writes human-readable release notes, publishes them to a hosted page, and optionally notifies users via email or in-app widget. No more “we forgot to update the changelog for 3 months.”

Who in the network: 579 DevTools/infrastructure people + every CTO who ships product. Also the 21 DevRel people who write changelogs as part of their job.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

How do you handle changelogs and release notes at [Company]? Do you write them manually, auto-generate from commits, or just... not do them?

I’m exploring building a tool that reads your Git history and generates human-readable release notes automatically. Published to a hosted page, with user notifications. Curious if that’s a real pain or a nice-to-have.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Jack Bridger — Layercode, DX (EN)
2. Jonathan McWilliam — Firecrawl, DX Engineer (EN)
3. Markus Palm — Featurebase, Growth (EN)
4. Shannon Vettes — Usersnap, CEO (EN)
5. Joe Martin — PostHog, Marketing Lead (EN)
6. Ashley Wolf — GitHub, Director DevRel (EN)
7. Baruch Sadogursky — Tessl, DevRel (EN)
8. Felix Malfait — Twenty (YC S23), Co-Founder (EN)
9. Zeno Rocha — Resend, CEO (EN)
10. Marc Klingen — Langfuse (YC W23), CEO (EN)

Idea 9: API Uptime & Error Budget Dashboard

What: A lightweight uptime monitoring tool that also tracks your SLA error budget. “You promised 99.9% uptime. You’ve used 14 minutes of your 43-minute monthly error budget. Here’s the breakdown.” Not Datadog — simpler, cheaper, focused on the SLA conversation.

Who in the network: 365 DevOps/SRE people + CTOs at B2B SaaS companies (enterprise customers ask about SLAs). Also people at Datadog (28), PostHog (9), Checkly who understand the space deeply.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

How do you track your SLA error budget at [Company]? Do you use a dedicated tool, a Grafana dashboard, or just eyeball it when a customer asks?

I’m exploring building a lightweight tool specifically for error budget tracking — not a full monitoring suite, just the SLA math. Curious if that’s a gap you’ve felt.

First 10 people to DM:

1. Daniel Paulus — Checkly, VP of Engineering (EN)
2. Matthis HOLLEVILLE — Agicap, Head of SRE (EN)
3. Xavier Pestel — Ledger, Staff Engineer SRE (FR)
4. Ludovic Logiou — Qwant, VP Infra/SRE (FR)
5. Leslie-Alexandre DENIS — Ten Ten, Head of Infrastructure (EN)
6. Romain Monceau — Malt, Platform Engineering Manager (FR)
7. Babis Chalios — E2B, Platform Engineer (EN)
8. Tanner Johnson — Notion, Engineering Manager Infrastructure (EN)
9. Dan OBoyle — bolt.new, Staff SRE (EN)
10. Bruno Rubin — Resend, DevOps Engineer (FR)

Idea 10: Onboarding Flow Builder for SaaS

What: A no-code tool to build product onboarding flows — welcome modals, feature tours, checklists, progress bars. Embed via a script tag, edit in a visual builder. Not Intercom (too expensive, too bloated). Just the onboarding part.

Who in the network: Every SaaS founder + 418 marketing people + product managers. The problem is universal: activation rate is too low, and building custom onboarding UIs is tedious.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

How do you handle user onboarding at [Company]? Custom-built flows, a tool like Intercom/Appcues, or do users just figure it out?

I’m thinking about building a lightweight onboarding flow builder — just the checklists, tours, and welcome modals. No full-blown customer comms platform. Would that be useful to you?

First 10 people to DM:

1. Adrian Graßl — IOTA, Head of Product Adoption (EN)
2. Martin Lausmaa — Coursy, Product Manager (EN)
3. Calliste Duru — Basalt, Founding Product (FR)
4. Vincent Koussouros — Aitenders, CPO (FR)
5. Manon Riou — Freelance Product Manager (FR)
6. Jeanne Sauron — Fashion Network, Lead Product Manager (FR)
7. Akira Tsukamoto — Clutch, Senior Product Manager (EN)
8. Tommy Giesbrecht — FINDIQ, CPO (EN)
9. Pierre Lemaire — Hexa, Lead Product Manager (FR)
10. Guillaume Peyronnet — Ibou, Head of Product (FR)

Idea 11: Founder Peer Group Matching (Paid Mastermind)

What: A curated, paid peer group for startup founders — 5–6 founders at the same stage, meeting bi-weekly for 6 months. You run it, you curate it, you charge €200/month per person. Not a community — a structured mastermind with accountability.

Who in the network: 2,733 founders. Specifically early-stage founders who are building alone or with a tiny team and need a sounding board. French founders especially — the French startup ecosystem has fewer peer support structures than the US.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Tu as un groupe de fondateurs avec qui tu échanges régulièrement ? Un mastermind, un petit groupe privé, ou même juste 2-3 personnes ?

Je réfléchis à organiser des petits groupes de fondateurs (5-6 personnes, même stade) qui se retrouvent toutes les deux semaines pendant 6 mois. Structuré, avec de la redevabilité. Pas une communauté — un vrai groupe de travail.

Ça t’intéresserait ?

First 10 people to DM:

1. Benoît Hecfeuille — HOLOGAME, Cofounder (FR)
2. Ludovic Simon — Timbré, Fondateur (FR)
3. Selim Decamps — Milou, Co-Founder (FR)
4. Julien Malrieux — POZA, Fondateur (FR)
5. Louis Delmas — Icare, Founder (FR)
6. Gabriel Ohana — Abracadabra, Founder (FR)
7. Brieuc Villette — Kesako, Co-fondateur (FR)
8. Jeremy Buch — Moonky, Founder (EN)
9. Dorian Zheng — BoxLite, Founder (EN)
10. Darius Lam — NEX, Founder (EN)

Idea 12: AI Security Audit for Startups

What: A SaaS that scans your codebase for security vulnerabilities, generates a report, and gives you a “security score” you can share with enterprise prospects. Enterprise customers ask “do you have a pentest report?” and most startups don’t. This fills the gap without paying €15K for a manual audit.

Who in the network: 126 cybersecurity people (including pentesters at Thales, Synacktiv, and multiple security startups) + every B2B SaaS founder who has been asked for a SOC2 report by a prospect.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

Has an enterprise prospect ever asked you for a security audit or pentest report? How did you handle it — paid for a full audit, faked it, or lost the deal?

I’m exploring building an automated security scanner that gives startups a credible security report for enterprise sales. Not a full pentest — an 80/20 automated version. Would that have helped you?

DM (FR) — to security people (supply/validation):

Salut [Prénom],

En tant que pentester, qu’est-ce que tu penses de l’idée d’un scan de sécurité automatisé pour les startups ? Pas pour remplacer un vrai audit, mais pour donner un rapport crédible aux startups qui en ont besoin pour closer des deals enterprise.

Ça te semble utile ou c’est de la foutaise ?

First 10 people to DM:

1. Ariel ELBAZ — 0FLAW, CEO (FR, security startup)
2. Hillel C — 0FLAW, CTO (EN, security startup)
3. Erik Vogelzang — Oneleet (YC S22), Co-Founder (EN, security startup)
4. Jason Wagner — Oneleet, Greybeard (EN, security)
5. Mathieu Fenyes — Thales, Pentester (FR, supply)
6. Matthieu Hiver — Synacktiv, Red Team Dev (FR, supply)
7. Amel Bouziane-Leblond — Thales, Pentester (FR, supply)
8. Charles AIMIN — Monkey 513, Pentester (FR, supply)
9. Christophe Hache — Theodo Cloud, SecOps (FR, supply)
10. Georges Ouffoué — CYVER, Président (FR, security startup)

5. Part 2: Sell Them a Service

Services are faster to monetize than SaaS. No code to write. You have the skills, the network has the pain. Here are 5 service offerings matched to network segments.

Service 1: “Ship Your MVP in 2 Weeks” Sprint

What: A fixed-price, 2-week sprint where you build a working MVP for a non-technical founder. Scope is tight: auth, CRUD, deploy, basic UI. €3,000–5,000. You deliver a working product on a custom domain.

Target: Non-technical founders in the network (a subset of the 2,733 founders). Look for CEOs/Founders at companies that sound like they need a technical product but whose title suggests they’re not technical (no CTO, no “engineer” in title).

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

J’ai vu que tu bosses sur [Company]. Vous en êtes où côté produit ? Vous avez déjà un MVP en ligne ?

Je propose un format sprint de 2 semaines où je construis un MVP fonctionnel — auth, base de données, déploiement, interface clean. Prix fixe. Tu as un produit qui tourne à la fin.

Si ça peut t’être utile ou si tu connais quelqu’un à qui ça servirait, je suis preneur.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

I saw you’re working on [Company]. Where are you at product-wise — do you have a working MVP yet?

I offer a 2-week sprint where I build a functional MVP — auth, database, deployment, clean UI. Fixed price. You have a working product at the end.

If that could help you or someone you know, happy to chat.

People to DM:

1. Axelle Ayad — Human Care, President (FR)
2. Violette Taquet — Eunomart, CEO (FR)
3. Laenny Medina — The Moment Digital Studio, Founder (EN)
4. Axel H. — Stealth, Entrepreneur (FR)
5. Bryan Lenett — Stealth, Founder (EN)
6. Alexia Toulmet — Meimei, Founder (FR)
7. Khalid EL Guitti — Paramedic, CEO (FR)
8. Jonathan Younes — Shootime.co, CEO (FR)
9. Zaira Khagabanova — NoIntro, Founder (EN)
10. Maximiliano Cooper — menze, CEO (EN)

Service 2: Technical Due Diligence for VCs

What: VCs need to assess the technical quality of startups before investing. You review the codebase, architecture, infrastructure, and engineering team in 3–5 days. Deliver a written report. €2,000–4,000 per engagement.

Target: The 147 VCs in the network. Specifically early-stage investors who don’t have in-house technical due diligence capacity.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

When you evaluate a technical startup for investment, how do you assess the code quality and architecture? Do you have someone in-house who reviews it, or do you bring in an external reviewer?

I do technical due diligence for early-stage investors — codebase review, architecture assessment, infra audit, engineering team evaluation. 3–5 day turnaround, written report.

Is that something you’ve needed or would find useful?

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Quand vous évaluez une startup technique pour un investissement, comment vous faites pour juger la qualité du code et de l’architecture ? Vous avez quelqu’un en interne ou vous faites appel à un externe ?

Je fais de la due diligence technique pour des investisseurs early-stage — revue de code, audit d’architecture, évaluation de l’équipe technique. 3–5 jours, rapport écrit.

C’est quelque chose dont vous avez besoin ?

People to DM:

1. Boris Golden — Partech, GP (EN)
2. Guru Chahal — Lightspeed, Partner (EN)
3. Alexis Robert — Kima Ventures, GP (FR)
4. Chloe Timsit — Kima Ventures, Partner (EN)
5. Benoît Descoqs — 115K, Principal (FR)
6. Aurore Lanchart — OSS Ventures, Investment Director (FR)
7. Denny Gabriel — Runa Capital, Investor (EN)
8. Andrea Guariglia — Dawn Capital, Investor (EN)
9. Thomas Bodin — Newfund, Investor (FR)
10. Romain Baranger — Campus Fund, VC (FR)
11. Hector Peribere — Pléiade Venture, VC (FR)
12. Pierre GILLET — Bpifrance, Investment Director (FR)

Service 3: Security Audit Sprint

What: A 1-week security review for startups who just got asked “do you have a pentest report?” by an enterprise prospect. Not a full pentest — a structured automated + manual review with a deliverable report. €2,000–3,000.

Target: B2B SaaS founders in the network. The 126 cybersecurity connections are your potential subcontractors or credibility validators.

DM (FR):

Salut [Prénom],

Est-ce qu’un prospect enterprise vous a déjà demandé un rapport de sécurité ou un pentest ? Comment vous avez géré ?

Je propose un sprint de revue de sécurité d’une semaine pour les startups SaaS — scan automatisé + revue manuelle + rapport livrable que tu peux montrer à tes prospects. Pas un pentest complet — l’essentiel pour débloquer les deals.

People to DM: Same as Idea 12 founder list + B2B SaaS CTOs from Idea 1.

Service 4: “Fix Your Infrastructure” Week

What: A 1-week engagement where you audit and fix a startup’s deployment pipeline, Docker setup, CI/CD, and monitoring. Many early-stage startups deploy by SSHing into a server. You fix that. €2,000–3,000.

Target: Early-stage founders whose product is growing but whose infrastructure was set up by a junior dev or the founder themselves.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

How does your deployment process work at [Company]? Proper CI/CD pipeline, or more of a “git pull on the server” situation?

I do 1-week infrastructure sprints for startups — set up proper CI/CD, Docker, monitoring, automated deployments. Fixed price, you have production-grade infra by Friday.

Would that be useful for you?

People to DM: Early-stage founders from the stealth startup cluster (111 connections at stealth companies).

Service 5: Content / Copywriting for Dev Tools

What: Technical content writing for developer tool companies — blog posts, documentation, tutorials, landing page copy. You understand the audience because you are the audience. €500–1,500 per piece.

Target: The 579 DevTools connections, specifically marketing/growth people at dev tool companies. Also DevRel people who are overloaded.

DM (EN):

Hey [Name],

How do you handle content at [Company]? Do you write blog posts, tutorials, technical guides in-house, or work with external writers?

I write technical content for developer tools — blog posts, docs, landing page copy. I’m a developer myself, so the writing actually sounds like it was written by someone who uses the tools.

Open to chatting if you’re ever looking for a writer.

People to DM:

1. Joe Martin — PostHog, Marketing Lead (EN)
2. Markus Palm — Featurebase, Growth (EN)
3. Jack Bridger — Layercode, DX (EN)
4. Yann Lacaze — Argil (YC S24), Growth (EN)
5. Luigi Fernandez Ortega — Receiptor AI, Growth Lead (EN)
6. Shawn Pitts — Grafana Labs, Technical Marketing (EN)
7. Imma Valls Bernaus — Grafana Labs, Staff Dev Advocate (EN)
8. Richard Seroter — Google Cloud, Chief Evangelist (EN)
9. Ashley Wolf — GitHub, Director DevRel (EN)
10. Ado Kukic — Anthropic, Community Manager (EN)

6. Part 3: Just Say Hi (Relationship Capital)

Not everything is a transaction. Some connections are worth maintaining purely for the relationship. These are people you message with zero ask — just genuine interest, a compliment, or a shared observation. The ROI is invisible and enormous.

Category A: People at AI Frontier Labs

These are the most interesting people in the network from a “where the world is going” perspective. Stay on their radar.

DM:

Hey [Name] — just wanted to say I think what you’re building at [Mistral/OpenAI/Anthropic] is genuinely exciting. I’m building in the dev tools space myself and following the AI infrastructure layer closely. No ask — just wanted to connect properly.

People:

1. Lelio Renard Lavaud — Mistral AI, VP Engineering
2. Florian Bernard — OpenAI, Principal Engineer
3. Jeffrey Chiu — Anthropic, MTS
4. Corentin Petit — Mistral AI, Solutions Director
5. Amaury de Longvilliers — OpenAI, GTM Startups EMEA
6. Israel Ramos — OpenAI, Codex Development

Category B: YC Founders (Fellow Builders)

You share the same world. Builder to builder, no pitch.

DM:

Hey [Name] — been following what you’re doing at [Company]. How’s the journey going? I’m in the middle of building something myself and always like connecting with other founders who are in the trenches.

People:

1. Stan Girard — Quivr (YC W24)
2. Rachid Flih — Panora (YC S24)
3. Marc Klingen — Langfuse (YC W23)
4. Felix Malfait — Twenty (YC S23)
5. Anne-Sybille Pradelles — Formance (YC S21)
6. Quentin Rousseau — Rootly (YC S21)
7. Swan Beaujard — Nomi (YC X25)
8. Baptiste Debever — Lucis (YC X25)
9. Jonathan Gortz — Librar Labs (YC W26)
10. Kurt Sharma — Burt (YC W26)

Category C: Notable Startup Leaders

People who have built or are building things you genuinely admire.

DM:

Hey [Name] — I’ve been using/following [Product] and just wanted to say it’s really well done. [One specific thing you noticed]. Keep shipping.

People:

1. Zeno Rocha — Resend, CEO
2. Bu Kinoshita — Resend, CTO
3. Maxim Fateev — Temporal, CTO
4. Quentin Adam — Clever Cloud, CEO
5. Rory Wilding — Supabase, COO
6. Lindsey Simon — Vercel, VP Engineering
7. Olivier Pomel — Datadog, CEO
8. Mike Cao — Umami, CEO
9. Alice Ryhl — Google, Senior SWE (known Rust/Tokio contributor)

Category D: Journalists (Long Game)

Do NOT pitch them anything. Just build the relationship. When you have something worth writing about, they’ll already know who you are.

DM:

Hey [Name] — read your piece on [recent article]. Really liked [specific point]. Just wanted to say keep it up — good tech journalism matters.

People:

1. Daphne Leprince-Ringuet — Sifted, Senior French Tech Reporter
2. Martin Untersinger — Le Monde, Pixels
3. Pierre Berthoux — Forbes France
4. Emile Marzolf — POLITICO Europe
5. Josephine Boone — Les Echos Tech
6. Sylvain Rolland — La Tribune Tech
7. David A. Graham — The Atlantic, Staff Writer

Category E: VCs (Visibility Without Fundraising)

Stay visible. When you raise, they should already know your name.

DM:

Hey [Name] — I’m building in the dev tools space right now. Not raising, just heads down building. But I follow your fund’s portfolio and think you back interesting stuff. Happy to stay in touch.

People:

1. Boris Golden — Partech, GP
2. Guru Chahal — Lightspeed, Partner
3. Aurore Lanchart — OSS Ventures
4. Alexis Robert — Kima Ventures, GP
5. Denny Gabriel — Runa Capital
6. Marc Rougier — Elaia Partners
7. Xavier Lazarus — Elaia Partners
8. Mo El-Bibany — Page One Ventures
9. Michael Sidler — redalpine

7. Part 4: Improvise (Wild Cards)

These are connections that don’t fit any category. They’re interesting precisely because they’re unexpected. Here’s what to do with them.

Wild Card 1: The Politicians

You are connected to Yannick Neuder (Député de l’Isère) and Françoise Gatel (Ministre). This is unusual for a tech founder’s LinkedIn.

Play: If you ever build something related to French digital sovereignty, public sector tech, or government procurement — these are the people who can open doors that no amount of cold outreach can. Don’t pitch them. Just stay connected. If an opportunity arises where their domain overlaps with yours, reach out with something specific.

Wild Card 2: The Goat Farmer

Quoc Dat LE — “Éleveur de chèvre (job de rêve)”

Play: This is the best LinkedIn bio in the network. If you ever need a content piece that goes viral — “I analyzed 15,243 LinkedIn connections, and the most interesting person is a goat farmer” — this is your hook. Send him a message just because it’s funny.

Salut Quoc Dat — je dois dire que “éleveur de chèvre (job de rêve)” est le meilleur titre LinkedIn que j’ai jamais vu. Comment tu es passé de la tech aux chèvres ? (ou l’inverse ?)

Wild Card 3: The BD Author

Didier Crisse — bandes dessinées author at Dupuis/Lombard/Soleil/Ankama

Play: If you ever need illustrations, a graphic novel about your startup journey, or just want to connect with someone who lives in a completely different creative world. Interesting conversation guaranteed.

Wild Card 4: The Mercado Libre Cluster

You have 33 connections at Mercado Libre. This is the Amazon of Latin America. If you ever build a product targeting LatAm e-commerce or need to understand the LatAm tech ecosystem, you have an unusual density of contacts there.

Play: If any of your SaaS ideas could work in LatAm, these are your beachhead. E-commerce event tracking, for instance, would be directly relevant to Mercado Libre sellers.

Wild Card 5: The Scaleway + OVHcloud Density

76 + 69 = 145 connections at the two main French cloud providers. If you ever build infrastructure tooling, hosting-related products, or need cloud credits / partnerships, this is an absurd level of access.

Play: Reach out to product/partnership people at both companies if you build anything self-hostable. A “one-click deploy on Scaleway/OVH” integration could get you distribution through their marketplace.

Wild Card 6: The lemlist Meta-Play

You have 14 connections at lemlist — a company that literally sells outbound sales automation. The irony of using LinkedIn outreach to sell to the company that makes LinkedIn outreach tools is not lost.

Play: If you build any SaaS with outbound/sales features, these people are both potential users and potential partners. They understand distribution better than almost anyone in French tech.

Wild Card 7: The Coaching / Personal Development Cluster

30 coaches in the network. Most founders hire a coach at some point.

Play: If your Founder Mastermind idea (Idea 11) takes off, coaches could be facilitators. Or: build a tool for coaches to manage their clients (scheduling, notes, progress tracking). The 30 coaches are your instant focus group.

Wild Card 8: Cross-Pollination Plays

Unexpected combinations from the network:

• Cybersecurity + VC: 126 security people + 147 investors. You could host a “security for startups” webinar and invite both groups. VCs learn what to look for in technical due diligence, security people get deal flow.
• DevRel + Journalists: 21 DevRel + 35 journalists. If you launch anything developer-facing, the DevRel people amplify to the developer community and the journalists amplify to the broader audience. Two distribution channels from one announcement.
• French Cloud (145 people) + French Founders (1,263 FR founders): A “French SaaS on French Cloud” narrative has political tailwinds (sovereignty). If you build something that runs on Scaleway/OVH, your French founder network is the market and your cloud contacts are the distribution channel.

8. Execution Calendar

Don’t do everything. Pick ONE SaaS idea, ONE service, and a batch of “say hi” messages. Here’s a 30-day sprint.

Week 1: Discovery (SaaS Validation)

Week 2: Service Outreach

Week 3: Double Down on What’s Working

Week 4: Convert or Pivot

Daily Rhythm

Follow-Up Templates

Bump after 5–7 days of no reply (EN):

Hey [Name] — just bumping this in case it got buried. No worries if it’s not your thing!

Bump after 5–7 days of no reply (FR):

Salut [Prénom] — je me permets de relancer au cas où c’était passé sous le radar. Pas de souci si c’est pas ton truc !

After a positive response (EN):

Really appreciate that! Would you be open to a 15-minute call this week? I’d love to dig deeper into how you handle this. Happy to work around your schedule.

After a positive response (FR):

Merci beaucoup ! Tu serais dispo pour un call de 15 minutes cette semaine ? J’aimerais creuser un peu plus comment vous gérez ça. Je m’adapte à ton planning.