A Battle Between
"Friends"
Founders Avi Schiffmann and Nik Shevchenko are beefing over who invented the Friend AI necklace first.
It’s not often that similar products are launched within the same week. It’s even rarer that they have the same exact name. And it’s even rarer still that it culminates with a Twitter diss track.
Get ready for a story that pits Friend versus… Friend.
Friend #1
On July 26th, Nik Shevchenko launched Friend, an open-source AI necklace that listens to your conversations and takes notes, on Product Hunt.
The launch was a success, ending the day at the top of the leaderboard.
Friend #2
Then, on July 30th, Avi Schiffmann announced the release of Friend, an AI necklace that acts as your constant companion.
With 23.6M views on Twitter, it’s fair to say this launch was a success as well.
The battle
Naturally, the founders were less than pleased with their adversary.
Nik struck first, dropping a diss track on Twitter in which he claimed that Avi is copying him and has nothing but Twitter fame, among other things.
It wasn’t exactly Kendrick Lamar vs Drake, but the track was definitely funny.
Avi responded by claiming that Nik copied his original product Tab, which was an AI necklace that helped people transcribe meetings, and now is just copying his rebrand to Friend.
They then took turns pulling receipts on who launched first, with Nik citing his original release in March and Avi his purchase of the Friend.com domain in February.
Have to give Avi the point here.
And that’s where the drama currently stands. It’s always sad to see founders beefing, but it’s especially so when the beefers appear so similar.
They both have a flair for the dramatic:
Avi spent $1.8M on the Friend.com domain name (which has so far paid off with 5100 backlinks).
Nik made the aforementioned diss track and appears to have marketed to the homeless population in San Fransisco.
And, of course, they are both young innovative founders building in the same market.
Ultimately, they both have their work cut out for them if they want their Friend to succeed.
The AI wearable market has so far been a flop, with Rabbit’s R1 and Humane’s AI Pin both failing spectacularly.
It’ll be an uphill climb to make either Friend happen, but the buzz from the beef has definitely got them off to a good start.
And who knows, maybe this was all a well-planned case of beef marketing.
"It’s wild to see two similar AI products with the same name launch so close together—and the Twitter diss track only adds to the drama! While it's tough to watch founders go head-to-head, it’s clear both Nik and Avi have passion and creativity. In the end, it’s all about who can rise above the rivalry and make their Friend a success. The AI wearable market may be challenging, but with all this buzz, they’ve got a fighting chance.
Facts!