Exchanging Business Cards is weird. But Maybe We Can Change That
Business Card Is Weird
If you’re a “business person” — chances are you’ve had those meetings where you politely exchange business cards with each other, introduce yourself, maybe some small talk around your titles and details on that tiny piece of paper, and then sit down to talk business.
But the business card is a weird concept. Of all the things on the card like name, title, contact information or even social media, only the name is more permanent ( even that can change too ). If you are promoted, got another job, changed the email address, or the companies’ visual identity changed, you will have to print new cards. And by new cards, I mean boxes of 500 cards minimum, delivered right to your desk. That’s a lot of trees getting chopped just so we can be promoted or have our email typo fixed.
That’s not cool at all.
So this year, in Cornell Tech’s startup studio project, we decided to build a new way to exchange business cards.
E-Business Card? That’s A Dead Market!
I know, I know. E-business card is not a novel concept. What we’re aiming to build is a smooth interaction experience that makes exchanging information easier.
Imagine that, instead of boxes of hundreds of business cards, you hold only one card. One titanium made business card with a NFC tag embedded. You exchange information by “Apple-Paying” with someone’s phone, the information gets collected to a searchable and organized wallet of virtual business cards.
This is the future we’re trying to build. On top of that, companies can have a unified visual representation template on every employee’s virtual cards, such that when the visual changed, every single virtual card they send out can be updated.
OK Cool, What’s Next?
We as a team of 5 would follow Cornell Tech’s Startup Studio curriculum, including 3 “sprints” sessions, to build our vision from the ground up. We would go through customer research, estimating potential markets, prototyping, user interviews, and building the core software. We aim to share our product on May 2020. Stay Tuned!