Short answer: start from a reason to buy, not a database. Describe who you sell to in one sentence, choose one piece of public evidence that fits your offer, collect 10 to 50 companies that show it, check each one on its own website, and note the business contact route it publishes. A spreadsheet is enough. Paid tools can save time, but none of the steps requires a subscription.
Most advice on prospect lists assumes you want hundreds or thousands of names, usually people rather than companies, pulled from a contact database or a scraping tool. If you are a founder or a small team, you often need something else: a short list of companies you can research properly, contact through channels they publish, and learn from before you spend more.
Why start with 10 to 50 companies?
A small list lets you do the work that large lists skip. You can read every company's site, understand its product and write something specific. You also learn faster: after a few dozen accounts you know whether your chosen evidence points at companies that care about your offer, and you can change course before committing to a larger list or a data subscription.
Subscriptions are built for volume. If you only need a few dozen well-chosen accounts, a monthly seat can cost more than the list is worth to you, and much of what it sells, such as personal contact details, is data you may not want to hold.
How do you build the list?
1. Say who you sell to in one sentence
Name the kind of company, not the job title. For example: “software businesses that sell to other businesses, publish their pricing, and already pay for distribution.” Each clause should be something you can check from the outside. If you cannot tell whether a company meets a condition by reading public pages, leave that condition out for now.
2. Pick one piece of evidence that connects to your offer
Choose a signal your product is a natural answer to. If you sell growth or analytics tools, a paid directory placement is a good start. If you sell to companies with larger deals, a published enterprise tier may matter more. Prefer evidence you can see with your own eyes, and keep the difference between a buying signal and purchase intent in mind: the evidence earns a company a look, not a place on your forecast.
3. Collect candidates from public sources
Go where the evidence lives. For paid distribution that means directories and launch boards, starting with the ones your buyers use. Read each one's submission and pricing pages first so you know what a listing proves; our guide to finding SaaS companies paying for distribution covers how to tell a paid placement from a copied-in listing. Record every candidate in a sheet with these columns:
| Column | Why it is there |
|---|---|
| Company and domain | So you can find it again and confirm listings point to the same site |
| Evidence | The specific thing that qualifies it: an amount, a paid label, a price |
| Source URL and date seen | So you can check it later and mention it accurately |
| What it sells and to whom | One line in your own words, from the company's site |
| Public pricing | The cheapest and highest published plan, if any |
| Contact route | The business channel the company publishes, such as a contact page or role inbox |
| Fit notes and status | Why it fits, why it might not, and what you did next |
4. Check fit on the company's own site
Open the company's website, not just its listing. Confirm the listing points to the same business, read what it sells and to whom, and look at its pricing. Drop companies that fail your one-sentence description. Expect to drop a good share: category labels on directories are often broad, and some listings turn out to be agencies, stores or side projects.
5. Note the contact route the company publishes
Look for company-level routes on the company's own pages: a contact or sales page, a form, a role address such as hello@ or sales@, a booking link, or a company social profile. Use the channel the company offers for the kind of message you are sending; many sites say which inbox handles sales or partnerships. Do not go looking for personal addresses in domain records or private social accounts.
6. Keep it small, then review
Work through the list in batches, record what happened for each company, and review before you add more. If replies are rare, revisit the evidence you chose and your one-sentence description before you blame the channel.
How many companies publish a contact route?
Across the 2,354 searchable software businesses in BuyerCue's index on September 24, 2026, these routes were found on the companies' own public pages:
| Route | Share of companies |
|---|---|
| Email published on its own pages | 85.4% |
| Role address (hello@, sales@, support@) | 71.3% |
| Contact, support or sales page | 61.8% |
| Company social profile | 58.7% |
| Contact form detected | 31.8% |
| Business phone | 8.9% |
| Public booking link | 6.9% |
Two things follow. Most of these businesses publish an email or a contact page, so you rarely need anything beyond the company's own site. And booking links and phone numbers are uncommon, so plan for written first contact.
How quickly do filters get you to a short list?
Faster than you might expect. Starting from BuyerCue's category segments, each already limited to companies with a confirmed paid placement:
| Category | Confirmed paid | + email on its own pages | + high signal band |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sales and CRM software | 96 | 83 | 14 |
| SEO and content | 161 | 142 | 19 |
| Workflow automation | 120 | 109 | 17 |
| E-commerce businesses | 110 | 102 | 12 |
| Finance software | 130 | 118 | 7 |
A category and one piece of evidence give around a hundred companies. Two more filters bring each list down to between 7 and 19, which is the size you can research by hand in a sitting or two. Notice that the conditions do very different amounts of work. Requiring an email barely changes the count, because most of these companies publish one; the signal band cuts it sharply. The same holds when you work by hand: choose conditions that actually separate companies, not ones nearly everyone meets.
Doing it yourself versus paying per company
The manual method above is a real option, and for a first list of ten companies it may be all you need. It costs time, most of it spent learning each directory's rules and checking listings belong to the right company.
BuyerCue is built for the same workflow without the subscription. Searching and filtering is free and needs no account: you see how many companies match, each one's evidence line and signal band, its category, and which contact routes exist. When a masked record looks right, one token unlocks that company permanently, with its name, domain, contact routes and full evidence. A new account starts with one free token, enough to try one unlock, not to build a list. Pack prices are shown on the pricing page once you are signed in.
What should you keep in mind?
- Public data ages. Every piece of evidence has a date you saw it. Recheck anything more than a few months old before you rely on it.
- A route is not a verified inbox. An address on a page may bounce or go unread.
- A route is not permission. A published business address is a way to reach a company, not consent to be contacted. Follow the anti-spam and data protection rules that apply to you, identify yourself, and honour every opt-out.
- Your sources shape your list. BuyerCue's index comes mostly from one paid launch board, so it reflects that board's audience. Your own lists will reflect the directories you choose.
Find your next 10 prospects, with evidence
Pick a segment close to your buyer, judge the masked matches for free, and unlock only the companies you decide are worth your time.