The Growth Meta: How to Build a Waitlist - a16z speedrun

Waitlists have shifted from hype-driven sign-ups to a disciplined lead-qualification machine. The piece argues that a well-built waitlist should tell you who signed up, why they joined, what they want, and how likely they are to become a paying customer. This focus on lead quality turns a simple form into a strategic funnel component.

Lenny Rachitsky's benchmark data is cited: conversion from waitlist to paying users ranges from 5% to 25%, with about 20% when you move people off the list within a month and under 10% after three months. The longer a list sits idle, the more it decays, so speed matters.

Day.ai's seed announcement generated over 4,000 sign-ups in 72 hours by waiting for a coherent story before launching, then using a standard press and social push to funnel qualified leads. Paid.ai treated the waitlist as a qualification step, collecting 15.8K visitors, 650 sign-ups, and 140 scheduled meetings, illustrating how to layer email capture, demographic data, discovery calls, and even paid reservations.

Taya's approach took the idea further by asking for a cash commitment at sign-up. Pre-orders of a hardware necklace arrived every four minutes, proving demand and providing immediate revenue while filtering out casual browsers. The payment data also revealed buyer personas, informing product roadmaps and marketing plans.

The overall thesis is that waitlists are not hype signals but revenue-generating assets. Build them to qualify, segment, invite quickly, and measure the next step, and they become a reliable source of high-quality leads for early-stage startups.