For startup founders
A digital business card for startup founders
A box of cards takes a week to arrive and describes a company that may not exist in that form by the time the box is empty. Printing is a bet that nothing changes, and changing things is the job.
You printed a hypothesis
The company name, the one line description, the domain and even your own title are all provisional. Pivot, rename, or narrow the market, and every card already in circulation describes a company nobody will find. Worse, it is wrong in a way that reads as failure: an investor who checks a dead domain six months after meeting you draws a conclusion you never get to argue with.
The minute after a demo, when they say send me something
At a demo day or a pitch event the conversation ends abruptly, because the next person is waiting. The follow-up window is that evening and no longer. A code scanned while you are still standing there puts your name, the product link and a way to reach you in their phone before they have walked away, and you get their details back in the same motion if you ask for them.
What it does for startup founders
Pivot without a reprint
Change the company name, the description, the domain it points at and your own title. Everyone who saved the card gets the current version, including people you met before the change.
One link instead of five
The product, your calendar link, the place to ask for a deck and your professional profile sit on one page, rather than being read out in a noisy room or typed into someone else’s notes app.
Capture interest before it cools
Turn on the form with a message field and an investor, candidate or design partner can say who they are and what they want right there. It arrives in your inbox with their address as the reply address.
Find out whether the conference was worth it
Scan and view counts, with the date of the most recent one, tell you whether anyone used the code on a given badge or stand. That is a blunt but honest read on an event you paid to attend.
Questions startup founders ask
- Should the card be me or the company?
- Early on, you. People back a founder before they can evaluate a company, and your name is the thing that stays constant through renames. Put the company on the card as a detail you can edit.
- Can I keep separate cards for fundraising and for sales?
- Yes. Separate cards have separate links, codes and contact forms, so an investor conversation and a customer conversation do not end up in the same pile.
- What happens to the link if we rename the company?
- Nothing breaks. The card link and the printed code stay the same and the contents change, which is the opposite of what happens when a domain printed inside a logo stops resolving.