CopyAI
Chris Lu and Paul had been working together for 5 years at their previous company, constantly experimenting with side projects. They were fascinated by entrepreneurship and wanted to lower barriers for creative people to start businesses. When GPT-3 emerged, they saw the potential immediately. They had tried several earlier concepts like ConceptHunt (a daily brainstorming newsletter for founders) and taglines.ai, but none gained real traction until they pivoted to a broader AI writing assistant.
The duo moved fast. Using no-code tools—primarily Webflow and Firebase—they built an MVP in 2 weeks and spent another 2 weeks polishing it. When they launched CopyAI to the world via Twitter, they generated 700 signups in just a couple of days. "When users started converting, we knew we had something," Chris recalled. They then expanded the product beyond the initial concept to handle multiple copywriting use cases: blog posts, e-commerce product descriptions, headlines, and more.
Twitter was their primary launch channel, driving initial traffic and early users. But their secret weapon was the "building in public" movement. By being transparent about their journey and progress, they built genuine community support. Word of mouth became their top-of-funnel channel, attracting users organically. This authenticity resonated with the founder community and created fans invested in their success.
Transparency and momentum proved decisive. Chris emphasized: "Startups seem to be about momentum. Once you get it started, you need to keep it up." Their main lesson was that "being authentic and focusing on a big problem seems to be the best way to gain momentum and keep it up."
Their biggest obstacles were operational: neither founder had experience managing or running a company, which caused them to lose focus early on. "Most of our mistakes cost time and momentum," Chris admitted. However, they treated these as learning opportunities and adapted as they scaled.
In just 8 months, CopyAI crossed $90k MRR and raised a $2.9 million seed round from top-tier VCs including Craft Ventures and Sequoia. They'd hired 5 people with more on the way, shifting focus to team management and scaling. Their vision remained ambitious: distribute AI writing tools globally to lower entrepreneurial barriers and help people find their passion in business.
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