I recently posted here about what I’ve been learning regarding waitlists and idea validation. Turns out, I didn’t really have a good waitlist setup for the app I’m building with my college friend. The current version was just a plain paragraph, an email input, and a button—not very descriptive or enticing for people to sign up.
So, I decided to redo it.
My approach was to ask ChatGPT (Using their o1-preview model, which is super impressive, by the way) for help with creating a more effective waitlist. I started by copying the summary from my post about what the waitlist should include, then described my app, its purpose, and what it’s supposed to do. I asked it for recommendations on how to structure the waitlist page and what content to include in each section.
The prompt looked like this:
These days, one of the most common practices is to validate an idea… [And the rest of the description of a waitlist from my other post]
I have an idea about:[Description of the app we intend to build]
Recommend how to build my wishlist page and the specific content I should write and display on each section as described above.
I was genuinely impressed by the level of detail it provided. It even suggested images I hadn’t considered, and I thought they were great ideas!
After that, I figured I’d ask for help with the app itself. Right now, we have an incomplete proof of concept built on a no-code platform. So, I thought, why not ask for a complete picture of the app? Based on its waitlist recommendations and the features it suggested, I asked:
“Given the app description and the features you recommended for the waitlist, could you give me a detailed description of every screen, input, and functionality this app should have?”
Again, I was blown away by the level of detail it provided. It even came up with ideas that were more thought-out than the initial concepts my friend and I had.
One thing I did notice, though, was that the navigation bar it recommended didn’t cover all the screens it had described. So, I asked it to clarify:
“Could you provide a more specific breakdown of how the navigation bar should lead to each of the screens you described?”
It then gave me a very clear and detailed user flow that helped me understand what I needed to build. That was super helpful because it gave me a better overall idea of the app’s structure.
But then came another realization—this was too much. I’m just getting started, so I don’t need the full application from the get-go, especially since I haven’t even validated the idea yet. I need just an MVP.
So, I decided to focus on the waitlist for now. Even after that, the first version of the app won’t include everything. Naturally, my next question was:
“Take all the functionalities, screens, and inputs you described and simplify them. Discard anything that’s not necessary for an MVP.”
Once again, it delivered. It broke down the functionality to its most essential elements, leaving me with a basic version that I can actually start building.
I still need to review everything ChatGPT recommended to make sure all the suggestions make sense and that the user flow really works as described. I want to ensure it’s a good UX design for the application. While thinking about that, I realized a few things, but I’ll share those insights in another post!