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How to Migrate Your Waitlist From GetWaitlist, LaunchList, or Google Forms

A plain-English migration guide for indie founders switching waitlist tools. What to export, how to move the signups, and how to re-warm the list without losing momentum.

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Hand-drawn illustrated header reading How to Migrate Your Waitlist

Moving a waitlist mid-launch is the kind of chore founders put off for three months and then rush in a weekend. The reason is always the same: the current tool captures emails but nothing else, and the launch email is coming up fast. Every migration I have watched (or done myself) has the same three-step shape. Export the list, upload it to the new tool, and send one honest email so the moved signups do not feel forgotten. This post walks through it for the three tools indie founders leave most often: GetWaitlist, LaunchList, and Google Forms.

Table of contents

When migrating is worth it (and when to sit tight)

A migration costs attention, and attention right before a launch is the most expensive currency you have. Do it only when at least two of these are true:

  • You have zero survey answers on the current list, and your launch email plan needs segmentation.
  • The current tool cannot send the launch email itself, so you would be paying for a second tool at launch anyway.
  • The current tool cannot host a public share page (goal counter, share block, survey questions) and your growth plan needs that loop.
  • The current tool bills per-signup and your list is about to cross a step in the price.

If none of those are true, do not migrate. Warm the list you have, launch, then move only if a real gap surfaces. Every hour spent moving is an hour not spent talking to actual signups.

What to export before you touch anything

Four columns, in this order. Any tool worth using can produce this in one CSV.

  1. Email address. Non-negotiable, obviously.
  2. Signup date. Preserves the list order and lets you re-count the goal counter honestly in the new tool.
  3. Referral source, if the current tool tracked it. Even a rough “utm_source” column pays off at launch time when you write “the folks who came from X get a different opening line than the folks who came from Reddit”.
  4. Any survey answers. If the tool never asked, there is nothing to export. If it did, keep every column as a separate field; do not concatenate.

Save the CSV somewhere durable (Dropbox, iCloud, a private GitHub gist) before touching the source tool. Migrations fail. Having a clean CSV in a second place is the cheapest insurance you can buy.

Migrating from GetWaitlist

GetWaitlist gives you a clean CSV export from the dashboard. Sign in, open the waitlist, click Signups, then the export button in the top right. You get email, position, signup date, and (if you added any) referral code and answers to whatever custom questions you asked. Save the CSV.

To land it in Lighthouse today, create the waitlist first (name, one-sentence pitch, goal, one or two survey questions) and then email the CSV to info@deadpixel-studio.com with the waitlist URL. We import CSVs by hand for founders switching over so the signup dates and any referral columns survive the move. Turnaround is usually the same day.

One thing to notice on the way out: GetWaitlist's referral counts are position-based, not intent-based. The person with the most referrals is not necessarily your warmest customer. Do not carry position into launch email targeting; segment by survey answers instead. If you want the full comparison of what changes when you move over, see GetWaitlist vs Lighthouse.

Migrating from LaunchList (or KickoffLabs)

LaunchList exports through the Waitlist tab in the dashboard, then the three-dot menu, then Export CSV. You get email, signup date, and any custom fields you added to the signup form. KickoffLabs is the same shape one menu deeper (Contacts, then Export).

The gotcha on LaunchList exports: if you enabled the referral leaderboard, the export includes a points column. Points are not intent either. Keep the column around for your own records; do not use it to sort the launch email queue.

If you were paying LaunchList monthly, cancel the plan after the launch email lands in the new tool, not before. Some plans downgrade the export access on cancel, and losing the source data mid-move is a preventable disaster.

For the head-to-head see LaunchList vs Lighthouse or KickoffLabs vs Lighthouse.

Migrating from Google Forms

Google Forms is the most common starting point and the most awkward one to leave, because the form is simultaneously your signup page and your database. Two things to do before you migrate.

  1. Open the linked spreadsheet (Responses tab, green sheets icon). Save a copy as CSV to a local folder. That is your source of truth.
  2. In the form, turn off Accepting responses. Not deleting the form; just closing it. If someone finds the old URL after the migration, they get a clear “this form is closed” message instead of silently signing up to a list you no longer read.

Then set up the new waitlist page and add the survey questions the Google Form was asking. Same phrasing where possible; small edits to make them punchier are fine. Point your existing landing page / share links at the new URL. If you were embedding the Google Form on a Notion or Carrd page, replace the embed with a single link to the new waitlist page. If you want the wider comparison of what changes, see Google Forms alternatives for a waitlist.

Re-warm the moved list (the one thing everyone skips)

The list is now in the new tool. Founders think the job is done and go quiet for two weeks. That is the mistake. Migrated signups need one honest email inside the first forty-eight hours, or they turn into a stale list before you send the launch.

The email is three short paragraphs.

  1. “You signed up for [product name] on [old tool / old month]. Thanks for the patience while I moved things around.”
  2. “Two updates in one line: [build progress in one sentence] and [launch date estimate in one sentence].”
  3. “One tiny ask so I can send you a better launch email: [link to the single survey question that matters most, hosted on the new tool].”

The migrated signups who answer that survey are the ones worth prioritising in the launch email. The ones who never answer are still fine to email at launch, but their reply rate will be a third of the answerers.

Frequently asked questions

Will the goal counter show the migrated signups?

Yes, if the tool imports with the original signup dates preserved. Lighthouse counts every row toward the goal counter, whether the signup came in yesterday or six months ago via CSV.

Do I need double opt-in for the moved list?

Not for a re-warm email under GDPR / CAN-SPAM as long as the original signup was consent-based and the moved list gets a clear unsubscribe. Do not use it to sell to a purchased list; that is a different (and worse) situation.

Can I keep the old public URL working?

On the tools above you cannot forward the old URL to the new tool at the source; you can only close the old page and share the new URL. If the old URL is on a domain you control (Notion, Carrd, your own site), swap the embed / link and everything downstream keeps working.

Should I bring old survey answers over or start fresh?

Bring them over. Even three-month-old answers still tell you which words your audience uses and which pains they name unprompted. That is the most valuable output of the old tool. Ask a fresh question in the re-warm email on top of the old answers; do not discard them.

What if I have signups on multiple tools right now?

Merge the CSVs into one file, dedupe by email (keep the oldest signup date), and treat the merged file as the source of truth. Send one re-warm email to the merged list; do not run two parallel warmups.

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