How we built a referral waitlist with Cloudflare Workers

Linecut is a free waitlist product we built as proof of craft: branded pages, unique referral links, a public leaderboard, and an owner dashboard.

This post is the short technical tour.

Stack

• Next.js on Cloudflare Workers via OpenNext
• D1 + Drizzle for signup and referral data
• Better Auth magic link for owners
• Turnstile on public signup
• Resend for transactional mail
• Dodo Payments for Pro

Why Workers

Waitlist traffic is bursty at launch. Edge deploy keeps the public page fast worldwide, and D1 keeps the data model simple for a first product.

Referral loop

Every signup gets a unique link. Hits are attributed, the leaderboard updates live, and owners export CSV on Pro. Bot protection sits on the public form so the list stays usable.

What we would tell a client

Ship the loop users can feel: signup, share, rank. Leave the rest for week three. That is the same rule we use on client MVPs.

Try the live product on Linecut, or book a strategy call if you want a similar first slice for your idea.