Waitlist

What it actually involves: a landing page with an email capture form, either a dedicated waitlist tool or just a page on your own site, and a one-line explanation of what the product does and roughly when it ships. That's the whole build. The part founders skip is the ongoing cost: an update cadence so people don't forget they signed up. A waitlist with no follow-up for three months converts almost nobody when you finally launch, because the people on it have no memory of why they cared. What it's actually measuring: real intent requires more than an email address. Someone who gives an email in exchange for nothing costs you nothing to say yes to, so treat raw signup counts as a soft signal, not proof of demand. Asking a follow-up question (company size, use case, willingness to pay) filters the list toward people worth prioritizing at launch. A second use beyond measuring demand: rationing access. Letting people in in waves, the approach Superhuman used early on, turns scarcity into a growth lever and gives you time to fix problems with a small cohort before opening up broadly. On early.tools, a tool in the WAITLIST stage is in exactly this position: pre-launch, still building interest, not yet open. What it costs you if you get it wrong: a long list of stale signups you never talk to is a vanity number, not the audience it looks like. Budget the time to actually message the list, not just collect it.

A founder collects 800 waitlist signups over two months by posting weekly progress updates. At launch, 12% of the list converts to a paid account because they'd stayed warm through updates, versus the roughly 2% typical of a list nobody emailed since signup.