Instead of traditional pre-launch marketing, create what I call a "problem community" first. Find where your future customers are already discussing their pain points (specific Reddit threads, Discord channels, LinkedIn groups) and become the go-to problem solver there. Instead of teasing your product, document your journey of understanding their problems.
For example, if you're building a creator tool, spend 30 days publicly interviewing creators about their workflow headaches. Share insights generously. When people see you truly get their problems, they'll naturally want to know what you're building. I've seen this create waitlists of thousands before a single line of code was written.
Martin Newsletter: www.dotmartin.io