A Waitlist Should Ask for the Action You Want Later

The action has a different cost

Traditional waitlists often ask people to invite friends, share a link, or climb a public leaderboard. Levels.fyi changed the action. To move toward access to its Community feature, people were asked to download the mobile app.

The first-party Levels.fyi Community page describes the same handoff in plain language: download the app, then wait for invites to roll out. It confirms the mechanism. It does not tell us how many people downloaded the app or how many became customers.

Sharing a waitlist link is public. It asks someone to put their social capital behind a product they may not have used yet. Downloading an app is private. It takes time, but it does not ask the person to endorse the product to friends or colleagues.

My point was not that app downloads are always better than referrals. The two actions do different jobs. Public sharing can create top-of-funnel reach. A private product action can tell you more about someone’s willingness to get closer to the product.

Treat the waitlist like a small product

In my first First 1000 waitlist issue, I grouped waitlists into six jobs: assess demand, capture low-intent customers, control the product experience, improve paid marketing economics, source supply for a marketplace, and create word of mouth. I called word of mouth the most dangerous reason to use one on its own.

In the second issue, I described a waitlist as a product in its own right when the goal is to assess demand, build word of mouth, capture the top of the funnel, or improve paid marketing economics.

That gives you a better design question: what value does the waitlist provide before the main product opens, and which job are you asking it to do?

My examples include early access, status, and a chance to shape the product experience. They also include website badges, referral steps inside signup, free points, hard beta cutoffs, non-referral tasks, screenshots as proof of effort, public leaderboards, and refer-and-skip systems.

Flowrite’s questionnaire used a recommendation request after several earlier questions. Maven Pet gave people points when they joined. Soon used a hard beta cutoff. Maven Pet also offered tasks that did not require a referral. Fizz rewarded a screenshot shared in a university Slack group.

Choose the signal before the mechanic

Start with the decision you want the waitlist to help you make.

If you are trying to learn whether the problem is real, ask for a product-relevant action. A short use of the product, a private setup step, or a concrete answer about the problem will tell you more than a public share. The exact action depends on the product. Make the action look like a small version of future use.

If you need reach, ask for a referral or a share. Make the reason clear and give the person a choice. Public endorsement is a higher social cost than entering an email address, so do not treat a referral as a default step for every product.

If you need a feedback cohort, give people a way to earn access without making them perform a marketing job. A short task or product-specific question can filter for effort without turning the waitlist into a popularity contest.

If you need to control a risky beta, use a real cutoff or staged access. A queue with no connection to access can make the position number feel theatrical. A real limit teaches you whether people still want access when the reward is concrete.

The sample is useful, with limits

I wrote that I signed up for well over 200 waitlists in three weeks and inspected roughly 100 more through the Internet Archive. In that sample, just over 55% had no visible growth engine: no referral codes, no waitlist position, and similar mechanics.

That is an observation about the sample, not a market-wide rate. It also does not tell us which mechanic produced the most customers. My Levels.fyi issue does not publish a conversion result for the mobile-app action, and the waitlist issues do not give a common denominator for the examples they describe.

A practical sequence

• Write down the job: reach, demand learning, feedback, or controlled access.
• Choose one action that resembles the next step you care about.
• Offer one non-public path for people who do not want to endorse the product publicly.
• Add a referral mechanic only when reach is the actual goal.
• Record email, app download, completed setup, referral, first use, and paid conversion as separate events.
• Review where people stop before adding another game mechanic.

Sources and original research

• Waitlists, February 15, 2022
• Waitlists (Prt 2), March 1, 2022
• Levels.fyi: Capitalize on Waitlist Momentum, May 3, 2022
• Levels.fyi Community: App and March Welcome Thread

Historical facts are attributed to these sources. An observed product change does not establish conversion lift.