I was 80% done building an AI writing tool. Then ChatGPT made it pointless.

💻 Tech & Softwareby ml_side_hustle · 3w ago

▸ What I did

I'm a data scientist and spent 5 months nights-and-weekends building WriteFlow AI — a tool that helps you write better emails and docs using GPT-3.5. Had a nice UI, tone adjustment, templates for different contexts. Even had a waitlist of 200 people. Was planning to charge $12/mo.

▸ What I expected

Launch in early 2026, ride the AI hype wave, get a few hundred paying users from the waitlist. The AI writing assistant market was heating up and I thought I could carve out a niche with superior UX.

▸ What actually happened

ChatGPT kept getting better. Claude got better. Every week a new AI writing tool launched with $10M in funding. My waitlist started emailing me: "hey are you still building this? I just started using ChatGPT for this." The final straw was when a YC startup launched basically my exact product with a team of 6 and $3M funding. I'm one person with a day job.

▸ What I've tried so far

Thought about niching down — "AI writing for legal professionals" or "AI writing for non-native English speakers." But every niche I looked at already had 2-3 funded competitors. Considered open-sourcing the whole thing but honestly the code is kind of a mess. Currently stuck between "pivot to a new idea" and "try to differentiate somehow."

Progress Updates (1)

Emailed all 200 waitlist people with a 3-question survey. 31 responded. Key findings: 22 out of 31 are already using ChatGPT or Claude for writing. 7 said they'd still try my tool "if it does something different." When I asked "what would make you switch from ChatGPT?" the #1 answer was "nothing, it's free." The 4 remaining people said they'd pay for something that integrates directly into their email client — not a separate app, but something that works INSIDE Gmail/Outlook. That... might be something. A browser extension that's context-aware inside your email. Not a standalone writing app. Thinking.

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