Startup waitlists are a red flag now
Just a feeling a few of my founders have had recently, and I wanted to hear others' thoughts. Having a startup with a waitlist used to be the cool growth hack strategy, but now it seems more like an expression of fear.
You can't have lousy growth if you artificially restrict growth!
At this point, a startup with an open sign-up is instantly way more formidable to me, even if they have lousy growth.
What do you guys think? Do you use a waitlist yourself?
Used in the right way, I think they are fine. And there are different ways to attack this and communicate this to (potential) users.
Why not offer a newsletter and a way to "keep updated" rather than a wait list. This way people can keep up with the latest development and know what's going on.
Or you can style it as an invitation. Something like "apply now for an invitation...".
It all depends. And I'd argue there's no single best way.
If the website is very detailed, perhaps there's detailed public roadmap, I'm sure people are more willing to trust and be interested in the product - even if it's not available yet.
I had a waitlist before! I think it depends on your rationale behind it. For me, I wanted a close relationship with my first 100 users. This allowed me to have a quicker feedback loop, more opportunities for research, and room to get to know them outside of the product.
I only had a waitlist for 8 months - did it slow down my growth? 🤷♀️ . But honestly, it doesn't really matter to me because it's what fit my product and experience the best.
Couple things I did to try to mitigate the time in between - I phrased it as 'request an invite' and had a newsletter every week on behind the scenes, roadmap updates, and polls.
I don't use a waitlist myself (at least not yet). I think it really depends on your long term strategy for a project. If you are creating a product where you want to push exclusivity, then a waitlist can be a great way to slowly release access.
If someone is using a waitlist because they are spending a lot of time building, then it is probably a problem like you described.