While networking may come easily for some, for others it's far too sociable of a skill, tedious, and well, truthfully difficult. Though pivotal to building business connections, the lengthy process of following up and substantiating relationships through constant contact takes time you most likely just don't have. Then there's memorization, remembering the faces of those you converse with while networking to ensure that the next time you chat you recognize them as well as retain some memory of a topic you first discussed.
It's a painful process.
Conscious of these problems among others, Yun Wang developed Infoduce to alleviate some of the agony attributed to networking with the help of handy dandy digital business cards for the progressive entrepreneur in us all.
Launched in January of 2012 with a private beta established in April, CEO Yun Wang and CTO Dan Nichols, college friends with a common dream, created their very own startup to solve a need, a need for a simple, cohesive way to connect with people: Infoduce. One part information and one part introduction, Infoduce has created a way for the traditional business card to be more interactive with a digital format, images, social network connections, as well as the ability to access a resume with the use of a QR code.
According to Wang, a self-proclaimed introvert, Infoduce is not only a business card, but it's more importantly a portal for easily accessible information.
Here's how it works:
- Access Infoduce and create your own personalized digital business card - Infoduce is still in private beta so acquiring an invite is a must before proceeding, but once you have access developing your card is fun, simple, and best of all fast. In fact, they describe the process as "quicker than getting your extra shot sugar-free ice soy late." It takes less than 5 minutes in total and you can include as much information or as little information as you want. This may include the basics (name, company, title, email, phone number, website) or for added flare your social media networks and resume. You can even have an image of yourself printed on your cards to ensure that you are better remembered by those you network with.
- Choose a template - With six different patterns to choose from as well as a wide variety of colors, you can make your card to fit your personality. In a few weeks you'll be able to take your creativity to a whole other level too with Infoduce giving users the ability to download their own templates to further personalize business cards.
- Order your brand spankin' new, technologically advanced cards - Your first 20 are free, 100 cards are priced at $39.99, and 200 cards will be shipped to you for a grand total of $69.99. Perhaps not the cheapest of business necessities, but worth it once you see how transformative of a card it truly is.
- Scan the 'ID' code - Once you receive your Infoduce cards, scan the QR code to watch as your information pops up on your phone. In order to do so you'll need to download a QR reader app on your phone, but you can easily purchase one for free (even if you can't scan it, you still have a business card). Wang calls the QR codes 'ID' codes instead (get it?). The differentiation between the two is that people often associate QR codes with spam, whereas the 'ID' code was designed to basically be usable by a mobile user with no excess advertisement pages, just direct access to the information that the user seeks.
- Get your networking on like it's 2030 - Not only will you stand out in the crowd with your effectively unique cards, but they will also show that you understand tech and are up with the times. You're hip, carry around your Infoduce cards with pride.
- Update your cards automatically - You read that right. Were you recently promoted with a new title? Did you change jobs? Have you moved? Did your email address change? Change your information on Infoduce and all of your updates will be automatically reflected on the cards you have. That's the benefit of having an 'ID' code.
Infoduce developed digital business cards primarily for nonprofit organizations, university students (particularly ones about to graduate) as well as small businesses and entrepreneurs, but they're perfect for any person who needs to go out and meet and mingle. Expanding your network is what Infoduce was created to help with.
As a writer specifically interested in education, I can see Infoduce especially being used productively in a university setting. Not only would the digital business cards benefit students, helping them to stand out from the slew of applicants for hard to get jobs, but they would also be beneficial for universities that could gain invaluable statistics from Infoduce including, but not limited to: how often student's cards are scanned (usage), what social media outlets are being accessed and how often, and the average amount of unique times resumes have been downloaded.
For those of you interested in giving Infoduce a chance, InTheCapital was given a special promo code for our loyal readers to get some free cards of their own. Acquire your free cards here.
So try out Infoduce and obtain an innovative, aesthetically pleasing, and technologically advanced, compact set of business cards with all of your information stored in one, easily accessible place. Be remembered. Choose Infoduce.
