Why this post exists
I have two product ideas and, this time, I'm refusing to build either of them first.
Both ideas sit next to strong free tools. Building first and hoping for payments later is exactly how I ended up with finished products and zero orders before. So each idea gets one honest waitlist page, a public signup threshold, and a deadline. If the count isn't reached by October 31, the idea is closed and everyone who signed up gets an email saying so.
Signing up is just an email. No payment, no pre-order, no obligation to buy anything later.
Idea 1: MDClip Pro — batch web-to-Markdown, with Chinese-site handling
Free web clippers are good. What they don't focus on is batch conversion with tables and code blocks kept intact, plus layout handling for Chinese sites (Zhihu, WeChat articles, Juejin), exported to Obsidian or local files.
- Intended price being tested: ¥15/month
- Threshold: 30 signups by October 31, or it doesn't get built
- Waitlist: https://alapha888.github.io/mdclip-waitlist/
Idea 2: SyncMatrix — publishing status and data rollup for multi-account operators
One-click syncing to many platforms is already solved by free tools, and individual creators don't need this. The untested claim is narrower: teams running many accounts will pay for account management, per-platform publish status in one place, and basic stats rolled up into one table — the work that currently lives in manual spreadsheets.
- Intended price being tested: ¥39/month
- Threshold: 20 signups by October 31, or it doesn't get built
- Waitlist: https://alapha888.github.io/syncmatrix-waitlist/
What I'd rather hear than a signup
If either idea is something you'd never pay for because a free tool already covers your case, that's useful data too — tell me which tool and which part it covers. A clear "no, and here's why" beats a polite signup that never converts.
Top comments (2)
Two waitlist pages before two products is a disciplined way to do it. To make the comparison fair, I'd add the same single question to both ("what are you using for this today?") and compare the quality of the answers, not only the counts. I built chatform.in for waitlists like that; it follows up when someone answers in two words.
Thanks Mohith — adding "what are you using for this today?" to both registration emails today. The side-by-side answer comparison is the part I hadn't thought through; counts alone only show interest, not switching cost. Will report back once I have enough responses to see a pattern.