Article · ~8 min read

Waitlists are a Vanity Metric

Nnamdi Iregbulem · whoisnnamdi.com Free Beginner

This is the cleanest statement of why a big waitlist number can fool you: it only ever goes up, and joining costs a person almost nothing, so it has near-zero connection to whether anyone will actually pay. It is a useful starting point because it does not just criticize, it shows two ways to add real signal (track how many waitlist people convert, and charge a deposit for a spot, Tesla Model 3 style). Read it before you put a signup count in any pitch or investor update.

• A raw waitlist count is a cumulative number that never falls and has no intrinsic link to customer value, so it flatters your pride more than it proves demand.
• Because joining imposes almost no cost, high signups mostly measure curiosity. The real signal is the conversion rate from waitlist to paying customer.
• Charging even a small deposit for a spot (as Tesla did with the Model 3) turns a soft signal into a costly commitment that actually indicates demand.