I've been watching a gorgeous orange health startup systematically take over my feeds every few weeks, and frankly, it's been making me question everything I thought I knew about early-stage marketing.

Superpower is the world’s most comprehensive and convenient longevity system – a thoughtfully designed, all-in-one platform for easily improving personal health.

Using a series of viral mechanics, influencer partnerships, and ‘creative drops’, they architected a hype-engine that drove over 150k waitlist signups in just 6 months.

Today I'm stoked to be lobbing the keyboard to my buddy Max, one of Superpower’s mad scientists co-founders, to break down the exact inner workings behind their spin on the “distribution-first, product-second” playbook.

A quick shoutout to our legendary sponsors, then over to Max.

Enjoy.

— Tom

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How Superpower built a 150k waitlist (in 6 months)

Chess Move

The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

Hello everyone! Max here, co-founder of Superpower, for a guest post in Tom’s newsletter. In this edition, I’ll share the repeatable playbook behind how Superpower built a 150,000+ person waitlist in just a few months.

But first, why are waitlists more important than ever?

In 2025, we're seeing a paradigm shift in company building: distribution first, product second.

The traditional startup playbook – build product, find product-market fit, then scale marketing – is becoming outdated. Instead, a new model is emerging.

This modern approach starts with distribution, builds anticipation through a waitlist, and uses that momentum to raise capital. The capital then attracts top talent, who in turn build an exceptional product.

When executed well, this strategy reduces revenue risk, minimizes dilution, and increases the odds of success.

Take Cluely last week – they started with marketing and secured $15 million to build their product. Bryan Johnson did the same. So did Function Health.

You might think these companies are just hype machines, but consider this: many of today's fastest-growing unicorns used similar strategies. Look at Cursor, Cognition, and Mercor – their first year focused more on storytelling and distribution than product development. Their strong momentum attracted major funding rounds, enabling them to invest heavily in R&D while leaving competitors behind.

A waitlist's true power lies in building distribution from day one – you don't need to wait for a finished product to start growing your audience.

Here's how we built Superpower's 150,000-person waitlist with minimal marketing spend.

Breakdown

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

1.  Lay the Brand Foundations Right

People chronically under-invest in and misunderstand brand. Getting these foundations right amplifies everything that follows.

Many think of brand as just "how you look." I'd argue that brand starts with "what you believe." There are three key parts to brand – strategic identity, visual identity, and verbal identity – and we were intentional about all three.

Strategic identity

This is what you believe and how you show up in the world. For us, this started with having a mission that resonates.

It was supported by a manifesto on our website – superpower.com/manifesto – that showed not just what we stood for, but what we stood against.

Visual identity

We invested heavily in visual branding from the start. We focused on distinctiveness, choosing orange as our brand color despite the health industry's convention of using blue. We created striking imagery through dedicated photoshoots in LA.

Our website won many design awards and continues to be reposted and amplified by the design community.

Verbal identity

We bought a striking domain name from day one: superpower.com

We are intentional about every word we use. Each element serves to reinforce the whole.

2. Use Viral Referral Mechanics

The magic of a line is that everyone wants to skip it.

We let people move up the waitlist by referring friends.

Setting up these mechanics was complex – we established that one referral would advance you to the top 5,000, while two referrals would place you in the top 500. As our waitlist grew, we had to adjust these thresholds regularly.

3. Seed User-Generated Content

Peak health is becoming a major social currency, so we developed easy-to-share digital cards showcasing members' health metrics. Users proudly shared these "Superpower Bio Age cards," equating them to the viral impact of Robinhood portfolio screenshots.

We bootstrapped this first by asking our investors to share theirs, which then catalyzed our broader customer base to do the same. We received dozens of messages of folks asking to join.

4. Make Strategic Acquisitions

We strategically acquired smaller digital health startups, Base and Feminade, which grew our waitlist in two ways: by giving their existing users access to Superpower (many were excited since their previous services were shutting down) and by generating significant PR coverage.

Going into this, I massively underestimated how much PR an acquisition generates, and the impact that has on customer acquisition and brand awareness.

5. Release Creative "Drops" That Capture Attention

Inspired by brands like Mschf (creators of viral phenomena like the Big Red Boots) and startups like @antimetal (known for turning 15k of pizzas in $1 million in revenue), we execute bold, memorable "drops" every few months.

Our recent release, "The World's Healthiest Hoodie" – a toxin-free, fully organic sweatshirt – sold out within 40 minutes and reached millions online (healthiesthoodie.com). The hoodie was listed for sale on Grailed for $2,000.

Our philosophy is simple: redirect every dollar that would typically go to Meta or Google ads into something that creates emotional connection.

6. Get Creators Embedded from the Beginning

Instead of paying influencers, we've built genuine relationships with creators who share our waitlist because they truly love the product.

A single tweet from @seanpk drove over 7,000 new sign-ups.

We occasionally offer select creators complimentary products or small equity stakes to join our advisory board.

Or, even better, we get them to invest in our company. For example, @ShaanVP invested right from the beginning, and every time he mentions us on the @myfirstmilpod we receive a significant surge in sign-ups.

Every round of capital we bring in, we reserve a few 100k for creators, and let them in for checks as small as $1,000 so long as they are willing to amplify our brand.

7. Building in Public as a ‘Platform Brand’

Internally, we have a memo called "Becoming a platform brand." A platform brand empowers every employee to become a creator and share content online. This breaks from the traditional approach where only executives and founders maintain personal brands. In today's digital age, people crave authentic connections and human relationships – they trust individuals more than corporate entities.

For example, Hannah's tweets regularly go viral. My LinkedIn posts consistently reach over 200,000 impressions. I remain convinced that companies vastly underestimate the potential of owned media, personal branding, and content creation as drivers of growth.

That’s the playbook.

— Max

Thanks Max! Building a waitlist used to be simple 😅

If you’re launching / hyper-scaling / in 2025, there’s something here worth stealing.
If a pal would enjoy it - please forward today’s edition along!

See you next week.

— Tom

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