“By the end of the hackathon, maybe about 10 hours in, I launched a wait list for people so they could sign up in advance before the tool was ready... I started getting a bunch of Stripe notifications from the early beta testers... I had just asked them to test the product.”

Open A Waitlist Two Hours Before Launch So Stripe Fires Before The Product Is Ready

Two hours before the 12-hour deadline, Lewis flipped a waitlist live to people who'd been watching him build in public. Beta testers had free access but voluntarily paid through Stripe — hitting his 'idea to revenue before midnight' goal. The launch was just opening the door to an audience he'd already warmed up.