Jun 22, 2020

6 min read

Persona. Play real

Since I left Karmacracy, I always wanted to return to a product which gamification was part of. It was a long time ago, that it became impossible to get the famous “nuts” and many of you told me the cool it was. The truth is that I miss them a lot.

It is true that I was thinking of creating a new system in which I could recover them, and I think that, to a large extent, the following app is what it pretends to be. As I asked on Twitter, the decision to make it public was palpable, so I wrote this post and I will upload the designs to github as I promised.

The poll I did before posting this post.

The idea comes from some very cool business cards that I had at Comalatech, the company I was working for in the past. Those are very popular at the events in which we were present. It is true that the CEO of the company, Roberto, likes a lot to improve this kind of merch, and I sincerely believe that it receives a very positive impact on the business.

Taking this idea of how boring business cards are and that 99% of the time, they stay in trousers or blazers before breaking it into thousands of pieces, I started to think about the idea of Persona.

The Pitch

Persona is an app that will make it possible to collect people virtually, but only if two people have physically seen each other.

The idea

Persona is an app that makes it possible to scan a QR through the app and collect the individual people virtually. The process is simple: When I meet someone, I can scan their QR code, and this virtual card will be stored on my virtual album.

Before starting

Each user who registers in Persona has to generate their virtual avatar. This avatar will be very easy to create, by choosing a series of characteristics that resemble yourself like hair, ears, eyes, glasses, skin color, … Once defined, the user could start scanning and collecting other people, expanding their collection as much as possible. Easy peasy.

Collect

How is the collect process? Simple. The user starts the app and through the scan icon, they will have the possibility of scanning other users. Once the QR of a person has been scanned, the app will ask to scan in the opposite way and if everything is correct, the two users will be included in the respective albums.

Verified users

What is a verified user? There is, as in many social networks, the possibility for the user to be verified. This gives the users another level in Persona. This level is being able to have unique physical cards. BOOM!

What does this mean? In addition to being given the possibility of updating your avatar with a more personalized design, you will have the possibility of generating physical numbered cards to be able to share them in the events. This type of card the user is collected instead of waiting for the other user QR code to scan. On the other hand, these cards, wil be unique and numbered and collectible.

What is attractive about verifying the account? The use of physical cards gives other functionalities to those who have:

Include codes on virtual cards (discounts codes, membership,…)
Inclusion of video ad when they are scanned
Stats: who scan, when, where,…

VIPs

Other type of cards are VIP cards. This card can be requested by anyone to Persona but not all of them will get this type of card. This card enables the creation of themed cards. These themed cards will have unique QR codes and also, they will be numbered. If we did an example with @IbaiLlanos, Ibai could create limited cards such as: Hair dye.

This card would be only in physical format and it would be Ibai himself who could give it to you, every time you met him on the street.

What benefits would it bring for the VIP? These cards could include:

Promotions when unlocked. Examples: Twitch private room with small crew of people to chat with Ibai and ask him things,…
Promotional Videos
Stats (very useful for communication agencies).
Number of collectible cards by Ibai fans that are not few (here one). Remember, they are unique and physical.

Events

Event cards are very attractive to the organizers themselves, as they could include cards only accessible in the event. It is also possible to combine it with the different stands that allow users who attend the event, encouraged to collect the cards, to go to the stand to find out. These cards are physical too, and collecting them is part of the game.

What does this type of cards contribute to the event?

The event can achieve sponsorships that can be sold to sponsors, offering unique cards related to their brands
These cards will be the first step to break the barrier to users going to their stand. This excuse will be an opportunity to start a conversation.
The inclusion of promotions on the cards themselves.
Real stats for promotion of scan versus invested.

Ways of use

Throughout the development of the design, I have come up with countless usage models. A very concrete one could be that the conferences that are increasingly having more participation such as Tarugo Conf, Lechazo Conf, Pucela TechDay, NosDay, or the even Freakend (to name a few) generate a system of collectible cards by the sponsors. A very quick card that I have designed is this, but there may be many more:

Next steps

What is your opinion? What defects do you see? What is missing? What is left over? Do you like it?

If you are an investor and you would like to push the development of the idea, or you just want to collaborate with the product because you found it interesting and you would like to see it working, or you just want to contrast opinions or failures that you see in the idea, write me to alexander. dolara @ gmail.com.

I have uploaded the project to Github as I promised. If you want to take a look click here.