A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", which tells search engines the linking site does not vouch for the page it points to. It passes little or no ranking credit.
Nofollow was introduced to make comment spam pointless. Today search engines treat it as a hint rather than a rule, and two more specific values exist: sponsored for paid links and ugc for links written by users.
A nofollow link still works as a link. People click it, and the visit is as real as any other.
Why it matters for a launch
A link profile that is all dofollow looks unnatural, so nofollow links are not worthless. But when you are choosing where to spend an hour, a place that gives a followed link is worth more.
Read more: Free dofollow backlinks for a new site