To find founders on LinkedIn, run a People search with the Title Boolean founder OR "co-founder" OR "founding" OR owner, then filter by industry, location, and company headcount 1–50 to surface the early-stage companies where founders are still hands-on and reachable. Unlike CEOs of big firms, founders usually read their own messages — but they're also allergic to obvious pitches, so how you reach out matters more than the search itself. Below is the exact search and the outreach approach founders actually respond to. (See also find CEOs on LinkedIn and the complete search guide.)
The search
- 1.In the Title field under All filters, enter:
- 2.
founder OR "co-founder" OR "founding" OR owner - 3.Add Industry and Location, and a keyword for the space (e.g.
SaaS,fintech,agency). - 4.On Sales Navigator, set Company headcount = 1–50 and Seniority = Owner to isolate hands-on founders.
Tip: the Posts tab is gold here — founders who post regularly are active and reachable, and their content gives you a genuine hook.
Why founders are worth targeting (and the catch)
Founders are the ideal prospect for a lot of B2B products: they're the buyer, the budget, and the decision-maker in one person, and at small companies they'll actually see your message. The catch is they're pitched constantly by other founders, agencies, and salespeople, so a generic DM gets deleted instantly.
How to reach a founder
- Talk like a peer, not a vendor. Founders respond to founders and to people who get their world.
- Reference their actual work — a post, their product, a recent launch or raise.
- Lead with usefulness, not a demo ask.
- Be concise. Founders are time-poor; two or three sentences.
- No fake flattery. "Love what you're building" with no specifics reads as spam.
Use the connection request templates and cold message templates for founder-appropriate wording.
Find and reach founders at scale, personally
Founders reward personalization and punish templates — which makes reaching a lot of them the hard part. Conextly handles it for LinkedIn: it finds founders matching your stage and industry, reads their profile and recent posts, and drafts a genuinely personal message and follow-ups for each — you approve every send. Peer-to-peer founder outreach, at a volume you couldn't write by hand. See how the prospecting search works.