My 1,200-Person Waitlist Got Me Exactly Two Sales
Last year, I did something incredibly stupid.
I spent six months and a painful amount of savings building a product. I’d done my homework, or so I thought. I had a slick landing page. A growing waitlist of 1,247 people who were "dying to use it." My announcement post on LinkedIn got hundreds of supportive likes.
I felt like a genius. The launch day email went out. I sat back, hit refresh on my dashboard, and waited for the money to roll in.
By the end of the day, I had exactly two sales. One was my mom. The other person asked for a refund a week later.
I'm not alone in this particular brand of self-delusion. I see it every day. Founders proudly pointing to their waitlist numbers, their social media buzz, their website traffic. They think they’ve found product-market fit.
They haven’t found anything. They’re just getting high on their own supply of vanity metrics.
The Dirty Secret About Startup "Validation"
Here’s what nobody wants to admit: most of what we call “validation” is just a collection of polite lies.
Those waitlist signups you’re so proud of? Complete theater. You’re not collecting future customers. You’re collecting people who were mildly curious for 15 seconds and thought, “Huh, neat. I’ll just ignore the launch email later.”
The real kicker? I spent more time last year admiring the size of my waitlist than actually talking to a single person who would eventually have to enter their credit card details.
That's not validation. That's building a business inside a fantasy world.
What Actually Works (Based on Painful Experience, Not Startup Dogma)
I decided to burn my old playbook. No more chasing likes. No more building products based on the verbal promises of friends who are terrified of hurting my feelings.
I started over, focused on one thing: commitment. Real, tangible, "skin-in-the-game" commitment.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Your "Validation Home Base" Should Involve a Price Tag
Pick one method that forces a real transaction, even a tiny one. Not the one that gets you the most signups—the one that makes a potential user pause and think, "Wait, is this actually worth $10 to me?"
Two options that will change your life:
The Paid Waitlist - I know, I know. It sounds scary. "But no one will pay for something that isn't built!" That's the entire point. Frame it as a "Founding Member" pre-order for a "no-brainer" price like $19. Offer a 100% money-back guarantee. If you can’t get 20 people to part with a refundable $19, you just saved yourself six months of building something nobody wants.
The "Fake Door" Test - This is the tool smart founders use when they want the truth without the sugarcoating. Set up your landing page with full pricing and a "Buy Now" button. When they click, a message pops up: "Whoops, you're a bit early! We're not taking payments yet, but as a thank you, you've just locked in a 50% lifetime discount." The number of people who click the buy button is your real validation number. Everything else is noise.
The test? If your validation method doesn’t make you a little nervous, it's not a real test.
2. Build Your "Truth Squad" of Tactics
Instead of one big, hopeful launch, I now use a small team of tactics to find the truth fast.
The Concierge MVP - This thing is like having a direct line to your customer's brain. Instead of building an "automated reporting tool," you sell a "Custom Weekly Report for $99." Then you make the damn report yourself. By hand. In a spreadsheet. You immediately validate the price point AND get feedback so rich it’s almost uncomfortable. Last time I did this, I discovered my customers didn't want automation; they wanted to feel like they had an expert on call. That insight was worth more than a year of coding.
The "Skinned Knee" Interview - Stop asking people "Would you use this?" It’s a useless question. Instead, ask them about their past behavior. "Tell me about the last time you tried to solve this problem. What did you do? What tools did you try? Did you pay for anything?" Their past actions are a thousand times more predictive than their future promises.
Simple Payment Links (from Stripe, Gumroad, etc.) - These are the Swiss Army knife you’ll use constantly. Got an idea? Create a payment link in 5 minutes and see if anyone will actually click "pay." It’s the fastest way to get out of your head and into the market.
3. The "Hustle Porn" Reality Check
Can we talk about the elephant in the room? The startup world is obsessed with stories of founders who "willed their idea into existence."
I saw this perfectly last week. Someone posted a story about their huge launch, conveniently leaving out the part where 99% of their waitlist vanished into thin air.
The lesson? Ignore the stories. Focus on the transactions. The only signal that matters is a customer trading their hard-earned money for the value you promise to deliver.
My Last Validation Playbook (And What It Actually Cost)
For my last idea—a simple project management tool for solo creators—here’s what I did before writing a single line of code:
Fake Door Test on a landing page with a $29/mo price ($0 cost)
Concierge MVP for the first 5 people who clicked the button ($99 per person)
Paid Waitlist for everyone else ($19 pre-order with a money-back guarantee)
Total time spent: One week.Total cost: A few hours and the price of a landing page builder.
Result: I discovered people would pay $99 for the outcome, but my proposed $29/mo SaaS features were all wrong. I learned this for less than $500, not after wasting $50,00_0_ on development.
The 2-Week Test That Will Save You a Year of Your Life
Here's your homework:
Pick ONE skin-in-the-game tactic to trial this week (The Paid Waitlist is a great place to start).
Identify your biggest, scariest assumption (People will pay $49/month for this? My target audience even has this problem?).
Design ONE experiment that tests that specific assumption.
Run it for exactly 14 days.
Be ready to kill your darlings. If nobody buys, they are telling you the truth. Listen.
The Truth About Finding an Idea That Actually Works
The best startup idea isn't the one that gets the most likes on social media. It's the one that solves a problem so painful that people will pay you to make it go away.
Your validation process should feel like a search for hard evidence, not a campaign for applause.
The real question isn't "How do I get more people on my waitlist?"
It's "How do I get a total stranger to trust me with their money before I've even built anything?"
Start there. Your bank account will thank you.