How to create killer waitlists

Welcome to new edition of WaitlistGuide Newsletter. In each edition, I’m sharing practical tips about how to build products that solves real user problems. Finding the right idea, validating your idea and getting traction for your product is essentials of each of these edition.

I’m caparing, founder of WaitlistGui.de. I also have 8 years of product management experience where I led product discovery and execution phase for companies like Stack Overflow, Samsung, Yara and more. You can always reach me by simply replying to this email or messaging me on 𝕏 @bcaparing. I’ve just started to actively use my X account posting my success and failure stories, so if you’re looking out cool accounts under 100 followers, that’s your sign to follow!

How create waitlists that doesn’t suck

Meet with Bob. Bob is a founder who is sparring his free time on building an idea who thinks people are willing to pay so he can share is fancy MRR charts on his X account. He saw tons of solo founder is making tens of thousands of dollars from different startups and he thinks his idea can help him to reach that level. That keeps him motivated while developing.

Then, Bob decided that he should build a waitlist to collect some emails from people who are interested in. He provide some details, add a few wireframes, along with a email input and submit button. He’s flying over the moon with the feeling of his product is becoming more concrete each day. Now it’s time to distribute his waitlist. He managed shadow banned only 3 subreddits along with his 5 subreddit attempt, shared on HackerNews and posted his X account.

Result?
0 signups after 3 weeks. Zero. It was utterly strange, because Google Analytics shows there’s a decent amount of traffic to his waitlist but none were converted.

Go to market strategy is essential, not only for the actual launches but also waitlists in this case. Waitlists are key the collect early user feedback and works as sanity check for our product ideas. And nothing was wrong on this process.

Most of the time context and functionality of the waitlists create the distinguishment between the best and failure waitlists. Let’s have a look some essential elements of great waitlists.

Clear Value Proposition

Just like your product landing pages, make sure it clearly states what problem are you solving and how you’re doing this better than your competitors. This is absolutely key. People are busy, distracted, notification bombarded, so grabbing their attention in the first look is your chance to explore more. Imagine this as your display window of your store. If it’s compelling yet clear, they’ll come in.

Feeling of joining a exclusive club rather than waiting the queue.

Now that they’re in, you want to make sure it’s worth it. This is your experience design. You don’t want them feel like there’s a big queue on the register section. Instead, make it feel like they’re joining a premium club once. Messaging like ‘early adopter’ or ‘beta tester’ gives their sign-up a value. Incentives to share the waitlist and skip the line build loyalty to your premium club.

Collecting Feedback

Most waitlists just shout, few listen. Don’t just collect emails; invite feedback. Let users tell you what they need, not just what you think they want. Early input turns a good idea into the right one and saves you a ton of time before spending time a product that nobody wants.

A tool for your waitlists → WaitlistGui.de

I’m building WaitlistGuide to help you create not just killer waitlists but waitlists that get seen. Last week, it was featured on Product Hunt with 129 upvotes and some amazing comments. Big thanks if you clicked that upvote!

With WaitlistGuide, you can launch your own customized waitlist page just by sharing your product waitlist link. Get visibility, attract early adopters, and collect valuable feedback.

Try it out today.

Last week’s leaderboard on Waitlist Guide

We had some great waitlists yesterday with good amount of traction.
Drumrolls please 🥁🥁🥁

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🥉 Obserra - Master your YouTube habits with tools for limits, insights, and productivity.

Inspiration of week

 That’s a wrap for this week. Happy building!