Your go-to-market plan:
Your product is being made. How many people need to be on your email and SMS list for your launch month to pay for the run? Put in 5 numbers and find out... then spend the wait building it.
Warm waitlists: most published waitlist benchmarks put the share that buys in the first weeks at roughly 5 to 20 percent. Lists that were emailed often and asked to pre-commit land at the high end or above it.
Cold or old lists: a list that heard nothing for months often buys at 1 to 2 percent.
Pete’s own number: on one of my past launches, about 30 percent of the list bought in the first month. That was a list I stayed in touch with the whole way. Treat 30 as a strong result, not a starting guess.
Orders that cover the run is the product cost of the run divided by what one order is worth. It leaves out your one-time setup costs on purpose: those are paid once, and the run is what you want your launch month to pay back.
The share that buys is the honest unknown. Founders who emailed their list every week through the wait report 5 to 20 percent buying in the first few weeks. A list that went cold buys at 1 or 2. Followers on social are not on this list at all: a post reaches a fraction of them and none of them are yours.
The dots are the list you need, 100 of them. Each one lights as you add 1 percent of it. It is a way to see the gap, not a promise.
What this does not include: people who were never on your list but buy because a friend told them, and the ads you might run during launch. Both are real. Neither is something you can count on before it happens.
Not sure what the run costs yet? Build it in The Launch Cost Stack. Working out the order-by date? The Order-By Date.