How do you ensure that users who join the waitlist become real users?

Don’t launch your waitlist too early, especially if you are brand new to the market. Most likely if I join the waitlist for a new product I’ve never heard of today, and receive an email in a year saying it’s time to sign up, I won’t. You need to make sure that you can keep the hype going from the time a user joins to the time your product launches.