What I learned from DM’ing 100+ copywriters about their editing workflow

I’m building a tiny writing helper (Rephrazo) that does inline AI rewrites:
highlight text → hit a hotkey → get a paraphrase in a small popup → insert with one click.

Before going too deep, I wanted to understand if this solves a real problem or just sounds nice on paper, so I did something simple but uncomfortable:
I DM’d 100+ copywriters and writers on X and asked them how they edit.

No “growth hack”, just 1:1 messages like:

“Here’s what the tool does; would this be useful to you or not really? A short answer either way helps.”

Here’s what I learned.

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1. Most copywriters already use AI — but in a very clumsy way

Common pattern:

• write the draft in Google Docs / Notion / email
• copy “awkward” sentences into ChatGPT or another AI tool
• ask for a clearer or punchier version
• paste back, then tweak manually

The pain wasn’t “I don’t have AI”.
The pain was context switching and the micro-friction of doing this dozens of times a day.

Several people basically said:

“I do this all the time. It works, but it’s annoying.”

That’s the exact behavior I’m trying to compress into one hotkey.

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2. “I’d pay a few bucks — if I actually use it”

When I asked about pricing, I got a lot of variations of:

• “I have no idea what I’d pay until I’ve used it for a bit.”
• “If I used it daily, a small monthly fee is fine. If it’s once a week, probably not.”

So instead of trying to guess a “perfect” number, I’m now focusing on:

• getting people into early access
• measuring how often they actually trigger the tool
• then asking: at this level of usage, would this feel worth paying for at all?

The takeaway: people don’t want to price a hypothetical habit. They’ll only price something that’s already in their workflow.

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3. “Don’t kill my voice” beats “make this perfect”

One of the strongest signals:

Copywriters care way more about preserving their voice than about perfect grammar.

Some quotes (paraphrased):

• “I’d rather keep the rough original than use something that sounds generic.”
• “If it makes me sound like LinkedIn, I won’t touch it.”

So the goal shifted from:

• “make this polished” → to → “make this clearer, same vibe”

This affects everything:

• prompt design
• how aggressive the rewrite is
• whether the tool presents itself as a “helper” vs. “co-writer”

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4. The best feedback came from very short answers

Interestingly, the most helpful replies weren’t essays. They were simple things like:

• “Yes, I’d use this for emails, not for long-form.”
• “No, I already have a good system with ChatGPT tabs.”
• “I’d use this only if it’s faster than my current hack.”

Each short answer gave me:

• a persona
• a use case
• a condition for success

That was enough to adjust the direction.

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5. What I’m doing next based on this

• Focusing first on email + landing page copy as the main use cases.
• Optimizing prompts for clarity + voice preservation, not “marketing-optimized” text.
• Tracking usage per session (how many times someone triggers a rewrite) as a key metric.
• Keeping early access low-friction: “try it, then tell me if you’d pay anything at all.”

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Questions for Indie Hackers

If you’ve done similar DM-based validation:

• What questions gave you the clearest signal early on?
• How did you turn qualitative feedback (“this is nice”) into concrete product decisions?
• At what point did you feel confident enough to lock in pricing?

And if you’re a copywriter / heavy writer yourself and this resonates (or doesn’t), I’d love to hear it.

For context, here’s the current version of Rephrazo:
https://rephrazo-ai.app/

But even a one-line reply like “I would / wouldn’t use this because X” is super valuable at this stage.