The initial waitlist for Robinhood saw over 50,000 signups in the first week and nearly a million users within the first year, marking a historic demand for a consumer finance product.

We successfully found our first paying customer just this morning after sharing our project for about two and a half weeks. I shared our project on LinkedIn and with friends, which generated curiosity and led to a great waitlist for our product.

To build anticipation for their product, Robinhood implemented a waitlist system that incentivized early adopters to refer friends, leading to rapid user growth and viral success.

Before launching on Hacker News, we debated whether to build a full product or test a lightweight MVP to gauge interest in our concept.

We launched an interactive demo of Wufoo before the official product, which attracted over 100,000 users and helped us gauge interest and collect feedback. Building an audience before launching a product is crucial; it allows you to start with a trusted base of potential customers.

Robinhood successfully launched on Hacker News with a simple message about commission-free trading, gaining thousands of signups quickly.

To gauge if people are willing to pay for a product before it's fully developed, I asked potential users what they would give for access, which led to creative responses.

When Robinhood launched in March 2015, we converted hundreds of thousands of users from a waitlist, exceeding initial expectations of a 10% conversion rate.

We brought in customers early to test our product, which helped change the minds of skeptical team members when they saw real-time reactions from users.