Startup Spotlight #50: Copy.ai

Copy.ai composes high-performing audience-based ad copy in seconds.

Nov 04, 2020

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I got the chance to speak with Chris Lu, co-founder of Copy.ai, about what he’s working on at his startup, and any advice he has for emerging entrepreneurs.

Copy.ai is the world's first AI-enhanced ideation tool. Their mission is to help everyone streamline their ideation by empowering them to unleash their creativity. Their platform is designed to help you bridge the gap between what you have in your mind and expressing it in words. By supercharging human creativity, they aim to speed up the technological and cultural advancement of humanity.

Lu is a cofounder of Copy.ai, he started his career at the ESO Fund and also spent the last few years angel investing on the side. He is passionate about technology and how it enables people to work on problems they love.

Startup Spotlight: Copy.ai

Problem: Being creative and finding the words to describe ideas in your mind is hard.

Market: The initial market is supercharging marketers for writing new and relevant ad copy for their audiences; the TAM of digital marketing is estimated to be $43.8 billion dollars in 2019. Our SAM should be approximately the size of the TAM because our application should work for all languages across all markets!

Solution: We help you unleash your creativity with our AI-enhanced brainstorming software.

Team: Chris Lu and Paul Yacoubian have worked together for the past 4 years at the ESO Fund and have angel invested together in approximately 20 companies.

Recent Success:

Lu: We've been successful at getting our product out to initial users. Our Twitter launch was especially powerful as our launch tweet received over 250k impressions! Over the last two weeks, we've gone from $0 in revenue to over $3k in MRR. We're lucky to be getting some word of mouth virality and continue to have a large number of signups each day.

Recent Struggle:

Lu: We've struggled to narrow the focus of our product for a smaller niche market. Our product is still a bit too general causing people to not fully understand how to use it effectively. We still have a lot of work to do on educating users as well as showing why our product is valuable. We can also do a better job of getting feedback to improve our product!

Founder Advice:

Lu: For companies, good marketing is about talking to your customers authentically as well. The founders of great companies often become synonymous with the brand itself. They set the mission and vision and operate in a style that ultimately defines the brand, e.g. Apple, Tesla, and Starbucks. Find the story that represents who you are and your vision of the future as it will affect everything from fundraising, hiring, product features, etc.

Three Cool Founders You Should Know About:

Lu: Here are three founders you should check out next!

Sid Yadav, Founder of Circle.so: Circle allows you to build a thriving community wherever your audience is, all under your own brand.
Devrim Yasar, Founder of Superpeer.com: Superpeer aims to democratize access to expert knowledge, which is often hidden behind sales pitches, university walls, and in corporate offices.
Sean Li, Founder of Magic.link: Magic allows developers to build applications without worrying about authentication. They envision a world where user identity and authentication is decentralized and not subject to control by the tech giants.

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