Inventing useful writing tools before AI writing was a category
Writing products and platforms that reached a large audience long before generative AI existed.
The What If
What if the hard part of writing is not generating words, but getting started?
What made it hard
These were built in an era with no language models. Everything useful had to come from structure, examples, and editorial judgment rather than generation.
What we tried
A family of writing tools and platforms, including WriteExpress and Rhymer, built, shipped, and operated as real businesses over many years.
What reality said
Tools that answer a narrow, recurring question outlive the technology cycle they were built in. Both properties are still live today.
The decision
HISTORICAL BUILD. Included because it shows the same instinct, make the useful thing, running long before the current tools existed.
Who worked on it
- Robert StevensExecutive Strategy
Sources: Robert Stevens resume, supplied by client.
Try yours.
You don’t need to know whether the answer is software, hardware, or a process change. That’s the part we figure out.
What’s the question you keep coming back to?
We’ll tell you quickly whether it sounds like an invent.me problem.