🥒 $1.8m on…a Domain Name?

Hey Pickle Gang, it’s Rob.

Here's what's in today's issue:

• Building a $1M App in 5 hours

• Startup raises $2.5m, then spends $1.8m on…a domain name?

• How to spy on UK companies (and how I legally became a Wizard…)

• And more…

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This Weeks Favourites

• Build in Public: I built an alternative to Doodle Jump by using AI. It took me 30 minutes, and I don't know how to code. (link)

• Article: Weapons startup Anduril worth $14b after latest funding round (link)

• Video: Greg Isenberg - How to use Reddit and AI to find winning startup ideas (link)

• Podcast: Marketing Against the Grain - From $0 to $150m: 3 key marketing moves that built chess.com (link)

• Fun Stuff: Pickle Jump - Alternative to Doodle Jump. See if you can beat 500? (link)

Today’s Goodies

Make Your Startup Vision a Reality!

Introducing our 5-Year Startup Business Plan, to guide you through starting your business!

Here’s what’s in it:

• 20 pages of expert-crafted content & financial projection guides.

• Comprehensive market analysis guidance.

• Suggestions, to anticipate challenges and risks before they happen.

Launch, grow, and dominate your market today!

News

Disney’s Streaming Business Finally Makes Money

Disney's streaming business has been burning cash for quite a while.

Well, this quarter it finally turned a profit!

This is probably because the lifetime value of the customers is slowly hitting. Since this is a subscription business, they will be basing their cost of advertising against the lifetime value of the customers, but that won't appear immediately, so they will have been burning money for quite a while.

But it’s not all good news, their theme parks are feeling the pinch with the poor economy. They had a 6% dip in operating income.

But they did have strong box office numbers from 'Inside Out 2,' which is now the highest-grossing animated film ever.

Here’s their full Revenue splits if you’re interested.

Story

Building a $1M App in 5 hours

Dawson Botsford built an app that helps Ethereum users find and claim unclaimed airdrops, essentially free money from various crypto projects.

Interestingly, he built it during a hackathon. The hackathon was a month long, but he spent most of the time thinking about the idea, meaning he only spent 5 hours actually building the damn thing!

But that time thinking was well spent, as the idea was clearly a good one - he announced the app with a tweet that went viral….10,000 signups in the first 48hrs!

Read his story here

Funding

Startup Raises $2.5m, then Spends $1.8m on…a Domain Name?

News: “Friend” is essentially a Tamagotchi, but with AI. It’s an AI pendant that you wear around your neck, that’s always watching, and sends you nice texts during the day like a friend would. It’s trying to battle loneliness.

But the crazy part? They spent $1.8m buying the domain “friend.com”.

My take: Sounds pretty mad, but there is method to the madness. Since it’s noteworthy, it attracts a fair bit of PR - people like me writing about it. This creates a buzz around the product.

This PR also has other advantages. It attracts backlinks from other websites, so their website gains more authority in the eyes of Google, and is more likely to rank. It also has built up many backlinks over the years, and so they’re buying a domain with existing authority, which can be a leap frog in SEO.

friend.com is also very easy to type. Less letters often means more traffic in the future. As a final thought, it’s also quite memorable as a name.

Is it a good use of money?….maybe, but only if they are able to raise further rounds of capital. If $2.5 is all they have, the domain probably won’t make the return they need alone.

But wait! Now, it’s likely that they didn’t actually spend it all in one go. I think they’ll have probably bought it as an agreement over a few years, and if they go bump, they give the domain back to the original owner.

Interesting marketing anyway!

Here’s more info

Growth

How to Spy on UK Companies (and how I legally became a Wizard…)

Companies House is the place where all UK statutory accounts are stored and available to the public to view.

Now, before you get too excited, only the balance sheet and notes are available on companies below a certain threshold (around £10m sales). So you don’t get to see the profit and loss for smaller companies, but you do for bigger companies.

Search for a company, click into it, and the go to “Filing Details”. Then open their most recent set of accounts.

I use this daily (being an accountant), but it can be really helpful for you guys to look at what margins you should expect as you grow bigger.

How I legally became a wizard…

Now, something funny. I briefly changed my title on Companies House to “Wizard”.

Yes, that’s right, I legally became a Wizard for a day.

Companies House is mostly automated, and apparently they don’t have filters to stop muppets like me going nuts.

Now, I say for a day, because my Dad and brother said I wasn’t funny, and peer pressured me into changing it back the next day.

Recommendation

Daily News for Curious Minds

“I stopped watching the news, so sick of the bias. Was searching for an alternative that would just tell me WHAT happened, with NO editorializing. I found it. It’s called 1440. It assumes you are smart enough to form your own opinions.”

Sign up now!

Meme of the Day

Hope you enjoyed today’s issue!

I won’t lie, it takes me a while to write, so I’d love it if you could give it a share! (just forward it to a friend if you’re lazy like me!)

Cheers,

Rob 🥒

Robert Benson-May, ACA

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