Jenni AI is an artificial intelligence based writing tool helmed by CEO David Park. The company operates on the Jenni.AI domain name. Late last week on Twitter, David shared that his company reportedly acquired the typo Jenny.AI domain name for $20,000:
I just made a real risky decision…buying https://t.co/7xSkdmDxPI for $20kπ
Reasons:
1. Users regularly misspell ‘Jenni’ as Jenny2. Word of mouth is our 2nd biggest channel
3. Jenny AI was googled 10k times in the past 3 months
Do you agree or disagree with the purchase π€ pic.twitter.com/tPN8LBfbjm
β David Park π§ββοΈ (@Davidjpark96) December 3, 2022
This was purely a defensive purchase for Jenni AI, and the reasons David mentioned make sense. Prospects and customers were likely confusing the spelling of Jenni with the more common spelling, Jenny. In fact, David shared that “Jenny AI” was Googled 10,000 times in the last 3 months. Assuming that figure is accurate, there was probably quite a bit of direct navigation traffic that went to Jenny.AI looking for Jenni.AI. For $20,000, David was able to forward all misdirected traffic (and hopefully emails) to his website.
I am not familiar with the email he shared, so I am not sure what platform was used to acquire the domain name. It appears that it wasn’t a BIN-priced domain name though. If that email is enough proof of sale for NameBio to approve, it will rank in the top ten public .AI domain name sales year to date listed.
Companies often balk at defensively acquiring a generic/descriptive but potentially harmful domain name in the aftermarket. I think Jenni made a smart decision to acquire the asset. At the very least, it will now recapture lost traffic. It also prevents a third party from acquiring the domain name and launching a different Jenny brand on it.
Why called it jenny?
Should have called it Karen or John