Honestly, I think I’d just launch. A waitlist sounds nice, but having actual people use the product and tell you what’s confusing or not working feels way more useful. You can always build the hype later, but that early feedback is hard to replace.

It really depends on what you’re trying to validate. For an early stage SaaS, getting real users quickly can teach you much more than a list of people who say they’re interested. A waitlist makes more sense when you need time to build demand, create a launch moment, or manage limited access. If the product is ready, I’d lean toward launching and learning from actual usage rather than spending too much time optimizing for signups that haven’t become users yet.

Maybe the better question is what are we actually trying to learn before launch. If the product already works well enough, letting real people use it can teach you a lot more because you quickly see where they get confused, what they ignore, and what actually makes them come back. But if you’re still not sure whether people are interested in the idea at all, then a waitlist can still be useful. So skipping it wasn’t really a mistake; it just depends on whether you needed to test demand first or learn from real users.

For me, I’ve learned it’s better to ship a simple MVP fast than to sit on a waitlist for months. You only get real feedback when people can actually use the product, click through it, and pay for something that works. I prefer to get v1 out quickly, put it in front of users, and let their actual behavior shape what I build next.

I’d probably launch without the waitlist too, especially if the product is already usable. A waitlist can tell you that people are interested, but actually watching someone use the product tells you where the real problems are. I’d rather have active users than having many people sitting on a list.

I can see the logic behind skipping the waitlist. Getting real users interacting with the product can reveal problems and usage patterns that surveys or sign-ups might never uncover. The key seems to be having enough users to generate meaningful feedback.

A waitlist can help build anticipation and create an initial user base, while launching immediately gives you real-world feedback sooner. I think the right approach depends heavily on how ready the product is and what the team needs to learn first.

Launching immediately was likely right if your product shows value fast. Real usage teaches more than signups ever will. Waitlists help only when onboarding is high touch, you need a specific cohort, or scarcity is part of the product. Otherwise they delay learning and reward anticipation over retention. The better question: what would a waitlist let you do that emailing your first fifty users could not? Often nothing.

I think it really depends on how ready the product is. If you’re still figuring out who the product is actually for, launching early makes more sense to me. But if you already have a clear audience and need some momentum around launch, a waitlist could be useful. The biggest thing is not letting the waitlist become a substitute for actually talking to users.

The interesting thing about a waitlist is that it can measure excitement, but not necessarily commitment. Someone can join a list because the product sounds interesting and then completely forget about it a week later.

What I’d be more curious about is whether you can create a “soft waitlist” after launching. Let people use the product immediately, but give early users a reason to stay involved early access to features, a small community, or even direct conversations with the team. That way you get the speed of launching publicly while still building the community and anticipation a traditional waitlist was supposed to create.

I’ve always felt that real users expose things you just won’t see while building in isolation. You can have hundreds of people join a waitlist and still have no idea what they’ll actually do once they get access. I’d probably launch earlier, keep the first group small, and use their feedback to shape what comes next.
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I think skipping the waitlist makes sense if the product is actually ready for people to use. A waitlist can create a nice launch moment, but it can also give you a list of interested people without telling you much about whether they’ll actually use or pay for the product.

Skipped the waitlist too. Best part wasn’t the users, it was finding out in week one which features people actually used vs. the ones we were sure would land. Waitlists make sense if you’re worried about getting overwhelmed, we were more worried about building the wrong thing. Would do it the same way again.

A wait list as the name suggests isn’t an alternative to a quick launch but if you want to build a community of people who would be optimistic about using your product in the long run then its useful, especially if the product hasn’t been fully developed.

I don’t think launching without a waitlist is automatically a mistake. A waitlist can create anticipation, but it can also give founders a false sense of demand if people sign up but never actually use the product.<div>For an AI SaaS, getting real users early can be more valuable because you quickly learn what they struggle with, which features they actually use, and where the product falls short. The bigger question is whether you had a clear way to turn those early users into feedback, retention, and eventually paying customers.</div><div>Sometimes launching early and learning in public is better than spending months building a perfect launch.</div>