Francesco Vitali will be the first to admit that when his co-founder Chris Siametis first pitched him on Rent a Cyber Friend, he didn’t quite get the idea.
“Who’s going to pay somebody to speak with somebody?” Vitali told TechCrunch. “But Chris was insistent. Chris is a millennial, and I’m Gen X, so it wasn’t easy for me to understand his vision.”
Vitali had worked with Siametis for about two decades together; they ran 48FILM, an international short film festival (Vitali is also a film producer). So, he took a leap of faith to trust his collaborator on the idea he couldn’t shake: a video chat platform where people can pay per minute for a casual conversation with a “cyber friend.”
Rent a Cyber Friend ballooned to 3 million registered users without raising venture capital or spending any money on marketing. The company doesn’t even have social media because it’s too short-staffed to devote resources to it. The startup is part of Startup Battlefield, and will be presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt at the end of this month in San Francisco.
The company’s fast growth proved Vitali’s first reactions wrong, but as he used the product himself, he began to realize that there’s a big market for human connection — especially in a time when people are paying to talk to AI bots.
“Loneliness is the biggest disease in the world right now,” Vitali said. “Millions are lonely, and they are underemployed or seeking purpose. So, we built a platform where human time has value again, and a place where being human is important.”
Cyber friends are first vetted to verify their identity, and then they can set a per-minute rate to charge for their conversations; the platform keeps 20% of that fee. People aren’t just paying for companionship. Some cyber friends charge a higher rate if they’re an academic or vetted expert in a specific subject area, or if they speak a particular language that a user would like to practice.
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For any social media platform — especially one that connects people in real-time video chats — safety and content moderation is a challenge. Vitali notes that the platform has a block feature, but as the company continues to grow, it will need to invest further in maintaining a healthy environment. He said that next on the product road map is a more robust and efficient system for vetting potential cyber friends more quickly and thoroughly.
Vitali’s turning point came not long after the company launched when he connected with a 19-year-old from China. He noticed that this person was one of the site’s most active users, and he spent $200 per day to talk to people. Vitali rigged the site so that he would be the only cyber friend available and used the opportunity to ask the user about his experience without revealing that he founded the company.
“He said, ‘I don’t feel safe to go out at the mall and meet with strangers, but this site gives me the possibility to exchange culture and meet people from all over the world,’ and that was the first moment that I realized we have something here,” Vitali recalled.
He still thinks that the connections that people make in person are irreplaceable. But on an internet where people are sucked into addictive or dangerous connections with AI chatbots that are designed to maximize engagement, this step of turning toward humanity means something to him.
If you want to learn more about Rent a Cyber Friend from the company itself — while also checking out dozens of others, hearing their pitches, and listening to guest speakers on four different stages — join us at Disrupt, October 27 to 29, in San Francisco. Learn more here.
