This reminds me of a certificate editor I did for a star up back when I was a intern during my college years.
The whole thing was to have custom certificates for several types of events, workshops and courses digitally signed. I was responsible for developing the editor.
I end up creating a "word art" online. You could add text, titles, images, backgrounds, some effects... You could export a PDF, image... All in vanilla JavaScript running on the browser. It was so much fun. It's a shame I don't have the final product to show.
The one time I needed to design a business card, I just used Inkscape and sent it off to a printing company. The physical card turned out better than expected.
Unfortunately the business is no longer around, so presumably I am better at making business cards than running a business.
Yes, in some circles it's weird to use them, but in my experience those circles are the weird thing. Those circles are usually software folks and startup folks in places like the SF bay area, etc. In those situations everyone trades linkedin profiles or adds eachother to contacts as we are standing meeting eachother. That leads to very weird social interactions which are the norm in these circles but are definitely not normal social behavior in the broader world.
In the broader world, everyone has a card. It would be weird if you were giving a police report and the deputy told you his linkedin profile address, or whatever. Same for your plumber, business card make sense and a aren't going away.
Last night after leaving a local tech event in Austin I stumbled into an ‘AI Industry’ reception which turned out to be all high powered government officials and lobbyists. I had my Popl NFC/QR code business card but they all had old school business cards. So it’s not just plumbers but also big tech lobbyists and former secretary of states who live and breath paper business cards.
But, whether in a personal or a business context, I don't do... either of these things?
Mostly, if I'm meeting someone for the first time in person, then it's either through friends, or at an event.
If it's through friends, I just... meet them. No "connect." We have a conversation. We say goodbye. If I want to reach out to them later, I ask the friend I met them through to reach out for me. Simple and 100% effective.
If it's at an event, I might ask for, say, their Twitter handle. (Or, if they're an artist, their Instagram handle; or if they're a maker, their Etsy store; etc.) But I won't interrupt the conversation to write it down, let alone add them right then and there. I'll just remember the handle, and if I really care, I'll write it down after the end of the conversation. Or, if I care slightly less, I'll forget it (or not bother to ask for it) and then if I decide I care later, I'll google their name + the name of the city we were in (or the city they're from) + their occupation and/or company they said they worked for.
...and outside of those two contexts, then I'm likely not meeting the person for the first time in person, so I don't want/need a card.
My plumber? They're already in my house. I presumably called them. I know who they are. I found them online, probably. "Their card" is their website/Facebook page/etc.
A deputy at a police station? I don't even need to know their name. They're a public servant with a uniquely role in their department. I'm guaranteed to be able to look them up at any time by role on the police department's website, and/or call the police department's non-emergency number and ask for them by role.
The first situation doesn't apply, I don't generally give my business card out in personL situations either, and let relationships organically happen as they do. That's not this.
Thanks for the second example, it gets right to my point.
Yes, in San Francisco if you ask the average professional for their Twitter handle that may be a way to contact them, etc. In much of the broader world its weird to assume people have one (I don't). It's weird to assume that that would be the way to contact them. Most of the world still uses email, phone and whatsapp/etc replacements for such to communicate. If I'm meeting someone for business purposes I want to know their business name, address, phone number and email. I don't want to know their recent tweets, etc. I just want to know what number to call when I want that service.
> I just want to know what number to call when I want that service.
I have literally never once in my life been in the situation of wanting to hire someone to provide me a service after the first time I met that person, in person.
Heck, I have literally never once in my life ended up with the knowledge that someone provides a defined service I would want, after a first in-person conversation with them.
Because people who aren't weird entrepreneurs/founders/"personal brand" marketers, don't market themselves in the sort of small talk they make on a first meeting. And likewise, when I'm talking to someone who doesn't read as a weird entrepreneur/founder/"personal brand" marketer, I don't ask them what they do as a first-step way of getting to know them. Because for most people, that's not the thing they want to talk about upon first meeting someone! It's not the most exciting and novel and conversationally-fascinating thing about them! It's just some boring shit and they want to get away from it when they're not at work! (Or, worse yet, it's something they're embarrassed to admit — like that they're currently unemployed — and you're throwing a wet blanket on the conversation by steering it toward work!)
I have been in the situation of being e.g. over at a friend's place, and the friend has a tradesperson or housekeeper or babysitter or something drop in. But you know who I ask for the service provider's contact info? Not the service provider. The friend!
In fact, I would go even further. I lived much of my life in a small farming community; I only moved to a big tech-hub city as an adult. If someone in my small farming community who I didn't know came up to me and started trying to sell me their services... I would actively distrust them as a service provider! I wouldn't just not call them; I'd do my own research, and if I saw that person among the results, I'd be biased toward skipping over them as an option. I would feel spite toward them for having acted upon a belief that they could force themselves into a top-of-mind position in my mental rankings for their service, without me even expressing interest. I'd feel about them the same way I feel about businesses that take out interstate billboard ads, or maybe people who try to force flyers into the hands of passers-by.
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But that's getting a bit beyond the point, because more people are "weird" entrepreneurs/founders/"personal brand" marketers these days than you'd think. It's not just an SF thing, or even a big-city thing. No matter where you go in the world, I promise you that all the stalls at the farmer's markets will have some kind of social-media handle on their banners. Your plumber almost assuredly does have a Facebook Page (whether they personally made it or asked someone to make it for them.) Your local campground — literally just a big flat patch of grass — almost assuredly has explicitly submitted (paid!) listings to 4-5 different camping directories. My local thrift shop runs For Sale By Dealer ads on Craigslist. Heck, my 45-year-old second cousin, who has lived her whole life in one of the poorest parts of the Philippines with spotty electricity and no running water, has a sari-sari store — and the sari-sari store has a Facebook Page. The gig economy is real.
All business owners have to market themselves in some way; and if they haven't lived in a cave for the last 30 years, they'll know that some potential clients will only do their research online — so they'll ensure they can be found online, somehow or another.
So it's really just employees that need business cards. In theory.
But even then: why do you need to reach out to an employee, anyway? You can just reach out to the business they work for.
(The one single exception I can think of, is if you interact with / pay the business, but all the "employees" are still gig workers or contractors, and the employees' services are not interchangeable. Like, say, hairstylists who rent chairs at a salon, and might be gone from that salon the next time you visit. I could imagine getting a stylist's business card. ...but, weirdly enough, they don't tend to use them! They — like most "artist" types — tend to point you to their portfolio website / Instagram page!)
I agree with you. Many of the situations you describe here would be weird situations to just bust out a business card in. I'm not advocating for walking up to random people selling your services and giving out cards, agreed.
What I am saying:
In situations where it makes sense, like trade shows, conferences, introduction meetings, business mixers or meet snd greets, situations where we are expected and encouraged as attendees to "do business" it can be very convenient to have a small piece of paper with your professional info on it so everyone doesn't have to carry notebooks or bust out our phone all the time.
It is also very convenient in situations where I have performed a service for a client and I can give them a card and say keep this, if you have any problems reach out, or I can put a card in with the hardware I ship them.
fwiw I'm an entrepreneur/business owner far from the software business, and I've be asked a few times for a business card so I'm going to get one just to have it handy.
For conferences and trade-shows where there is an expectation to network. My company gives us conventional cards with little qr code v-cards.
I only needed a handful of cards for a recent event as I'm not one of the sales engineers. When I realized I wouldn't have any in time if I requested them, I saw it as an opportunity to understand the v-card format and qr codes and write https://github.com/Stedag/qr_card which generated them and I just cut a out a couple sheets of card stock.
My favorite part is that I could set the note for my contact in their phone to be specific to the event while not being sneaky:
Sure. I would go so far as to say if you consider yourself a professional in your field and don't have a business card, you are probably missing out on networking opportunities. (Not because you don't have a business card, but because you aren't exposing yourself to situations where people would ask for one.)
Yes. Go to any conference or trade show or people-convergent event, nearly just about anywhere, particularly one that is even just vaguely not "tech" since, like, Bay Area bubblism seems to be the exception, and you'll find cards being traded like...trade show business cards.
Not necessarily but here is how I do (I'm in the technical industry).
I will try to initiate the iOS Bump thingy > if not goes to a backup tool called HiHello[1] (universal) > then the business card. Of course, if I'm in the company of either Japanese or if I see people handing out printed business cards, I have my super well-done minimal but still beautiful paper business card. The paper ones lasts a very long time (years) these days.
1. I stumbled on HiHello (I think on HackerNews) and I can use this by just swiping the home screen for the widget and don't have to ever open the App. https://www.hihello.com
Honestly, if you’re in a job where you meet potential connections in person, it’s a lot easier to give someone a card with your info rather than to tell them how to find you on the internet and hope they remember.
I was at gophercon last month, and I vowed to get calling cards before next year. Getting out your phone and typing contact info is awkward by itself. Add in my hearing loss and it gets even worse.
After accruing a big bag of them which I honestly never looked at again, I stopped. Accepting one from someone is considered polite in some circles, but ultimately meaningless
From that video: "This card doesn't fit in a Rolodex, because it doesn't belong in a Rolodex!"
Yeah, and it doesn't fit in a wallet either... So it's going to get thrown away as soon as he's turned his back. Four dollars down the drain every time.
My initial thoughts for this project is it's intended to be a place for you to create a digital business card as a place to put links and other information, it's more like a Linktree than an actual business card, although I do want the user to be able to print out their cards to be used physically eventually.
Right now it's a bit simpler to have the user create their account first, as it's mostly intended for them to immediately be saving it into their account so they can have it ready to be shared with others, or to print out once that feature gets added. In future having an option for the user to test it out first would be a good idea though
Yeah, I don't see the point of forcing users to create an account just to try out the app. I wouldn't be surprised if you had an extremely large percent of garbage input in your database.
Thankfully, you didn't actually verify the email address, but if you did, that's probably the point where I would have gave up.
Yeah, that’s a good suggestion thank you, I will be implementing a way for people to test it out and then create the account only if they want to save/share the card.
And yes I can confirm, there is quite the amount of garbage data.
Thank you for the feedback!
I'm curious about what makes it a bad idea. What is the difference between sending it as a header compared to sending it as form data? If someone has access to headers, they probably also have access to the body.
Thanks for pointing that out, I figured out why that's happening, it'll be fixed in the next release
And it's currently in open alpha, it's not yet finished. I have a lot of plans on how to offer more customization options in future.