Waitlist or MVP First? The Founder's Guide to Testing a SaaS Idea

Part 1: Find out who is actually waiting

Most waitlist forms ask for a name and email. That builds a mailing list. It doesn't explain an audience.

Add one question that tests an assumption behind the product. For a B2B SaaS, ask the person's role or company size. For a fitness product, ask their training goal. For a creator tool, ask what they use today. Keep the form short. The aim is to turn anonymous demand into audience segments over time.

Set a target before the page goes live, such as 300 people from your target audience in 8 weeks. Pick your own number. Without one, every result looks like a win. And remember that 500 relevant sign-ups can teach you more than 5,000 attracted by a giveaway.

SadaPay: 150,000 people waiting for 1,000 accounts

It came to me via my friend's WhatsApp status back in 2020. SadaPay, a Pakistani fintech, was waiting on its central bank licence while people kept asking when accounts would open. So the team gamified the waitlist. Referring friends moved you up the list, and the top spots earned a black "Founders' Club" debit card.

By December 2020, nearly 150,000 people were waiting, and the regulator's pilot allowed only 1,000 accounts. When the full licence arrived in April 2022, more than 500,000 were waiting. The team planned to open accounts over several weeks.

The useful lesson isn't "build a huge waitlist." Access had meaning. People were waiting for something they wanted, while a smaller early group could actually use it. That beats collecting emails for 6 months and writing to everyone on launch day.

Inform: one audience, one promise

A client project at Code Huddle shows the same idea at a smaller scale. Inform is a guided injury-rehab app for runners and athletes, developed by a sports physiotherapist. Its Instagram bio says "Structured rehab. No guesswork." and invites people to join before launch. Its site now describes early access for a limited cohort.

A waitlist like this can show whether early interest comes from recreational runners, competitive athletes, or people dealing with an injury. Those answers can shape onboarding, content, and the first product experience.

Part 2: Turn the list into a feedback loop

Give people something to do after they join

In my career, I wrote content for 10+ NFT-based GameFi and Metaverse projects. Several ran waitlists. Early communities were rarely passive lists. People could follow updates, invite others, join campaigns, or qualify for an early benefit.

Not every mechanic aged well. Projects like SpireX tied NFT whitelist spots to the waitlist, and waitlist vendors warn that bots show up within minutes in web3 campaigns. One lesson still holds: joining should start participation, not end it.

For a SaaS waitlist, that can be simple:

• Send a 30-second demo and ask what users expected to happen next.
• Let people choose which problem you solve first.
• Invite a smaller segment to test V1.
• Ask testers where they got confused, not "How was your experience?"

Now the waitlist is a feedback loop.

Keep it alive without turning it into a newsletter

A person who joins today may not remember your product in 3 months. That doesn't mean emailing them every Friday. Write when something meaningful changes: a prototype is ready, beta access opens, a requested feature is in testing, or feedback changed a workflow. Waitlist vendors warn that silence kills pre-launch momentum.

Referral mechanics can sit on top if sharing genuinely benefits the user, as it did at SadaPay. But a referral campaign can raise your sign-up count without proving anyone needs the product.

What I'd include

You don't need a complicated funnel. I'd start with 5 parts: a sign-up with one segmentation question, a genuine reason to join, a learning loop of surveys and V1 feedback, updates worth opening, and measurement of audience fit, engagement, and activation.

Is a waitlist proof of product-market fit?

No. It shows interest. It doesn't prove people will use the product, return to it or pay for it.

So I wouldn't ask, "How many people are on our waitlist?" I'd ask who joined, why they joined, what we learned from them and what they did when we gave them access. I'd take 100 people who answer a survey over 1,000 who only click.

When to start, and when to skip

One waitlist vendor suggests starting two to six months before launch. Start when you can't name your buyer or the rollout will be gradual anyway. Skip it when paying customers already want the product. Build the MVP.

Watch for four mistakes: asking only for an email, selling a vague promise, treating sign-ups as sales and going quiet after people join.

Before you build more, learn more

The goal isn't to make the waiting list look bigger. It's to make the next product decision better.

Not sure whether your idea needs a waitlist or an MVP?

Send us your idea, your audience and your launch date. We'll tell you what we'd build first.