AI 'Friend' Company Spent $1.8M and Most of Its Funds on Domain Name
Friend, an AI companion company, spent $1.8 million of its $2.5 million funding on the domain friend.com, confirming the investment's value despite initial skepticism about the high cost.
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Friend, an AI companion company, has reportedly spent $1.8 million of the $2.5 million it raised on acquiring the domain name friend.com. Founder Avi Schiffmann confirmed this expenditure in a tweet and provided a screenshot of the transaction, which took place on February 6 through Escrow.com. The high cost of premium domains was acknowledged by Schiffmann, who stated that it was a worthwhile investment. The company has been valued at $50 million following this funding round. Despite initial skepticism regarding the domain price, Schiffmann's confirmation and the transaction details clarify the significant financial commitment made towards establishing the brand's online presence.
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5 commentsThat neatly sums up the priorities of many recent "AI" startups.
So it’s closer to $1.9M.
> "People just don’t get consumer, I view this as saving money. Much less money needs to be spent on marketing, it’s a one time thing," Schiffmann said.
What’s the logic here? It doesn’t matter if your domain is imbecile.tld or something slightly less “premium”, you still have to tell people about it. No one is typing random domains in the address bar. Does anyone think Dropbox’s adoption was hampered by their initial domain being getdropbox.com?
Also, this does say a lot about the founder’s priorities: that spending on marketing is at least three times more important than spending on improving the core offer.
> The device also looks like a more specialized version of other AI companion devices like the Humane Pin and the Rabbit R1, both of which have had disastrous launches.
If and when this fails, I wonder if they’s still claim they “get consumer”.
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