Interviews
This Startup LinkCards Gives You Much More From Your Digital Business Card
Having a business card is a really important thing! Because you represent first of all yourself then your company. So,you definitely need to have one or a couple of them. No matter you are on business meeting, conference, or trade fair business card can be a great lifesaver for you because you can exchange contacts with others and show yourself in the better light.
Business cards can also enhance credibility, as they can create a sense of professionalism and legitimacy for your business. white ink printing is most commonly used with business cards. so that’s why business cards important for everyone.
Business cards help you stand out, especially in today’s digital environment where business meetings are much more casual and mostly digital. If you can present your client or potential customer with a great business card, you’re much more likely to be remembered later on by that person.
But can you expect more from a simple business card, Ofcourse yes. Today we are presenting an exclusive interview of a young startup in technology vertical. This young startup has launched a mobile app LinkCards. The App allows users to connect using their digital business cards.
Lets see how their venture is helping young business entrepreneurs & startup owners to be more social, professional And ofcourse connect with each other seamlessly.
1.What is the Name of Your Venture? Any specific reason for this name?
Linkcards Business Solutions is the name of the venture. The product name is LinkCards. Linkcards because the App allows users to connect using their digital business cards.
2.Who is your target Audience/clients?
We are building Linkcards for every professional out in the market who want to Network and grow their business. Linkcards help professional to easily connect with anyone at meeting and events as well as online platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter or facebook.
3.Where is your venture based (city, state, country) & What are your geographical target areas?
Linkcards Business Solution is based in Mumbai, India. But the target market is not specific to any geographic region. We are currently targeting all the English speaking regions in the world.
4.What problems does your venture resolve? What are your products or services?
Realized the ‘Gap between contact sharing and networking‘. As the Networking has gone digital but the contact sharing culture is still been carried via a traditional method, Paper Business cards. The process to maintain leads database, update and make daily reports is a hassle for a daily sales professional. Paper business cards are costly, requires space, printing ink, which needs to be reprinted from time to time, thus effecting the environment. A digital contact sharing platform can help solve these, hence Linkcards.
Linkcards – Product and services :
Linkcards is a Digital business cards App for professionals which allows to create and share digital business cards with anyone, anywhere.
23.Tell us something about your education & family background.
24.What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other start-ups in similar domains.
27.Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
Name – Kapil Agarwal
the receiver may or may not require the app to view the shared business card and can save in their phone’s address book. Along with the basic contact details and logo, Linkcards users can attach all their social media profile links such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc; to connect easily with anyone they meet. Attach company portfolio or Youtube links to showcase a new product launch or attach a Resume or a brochure images.
Linkcards business cards can be shared using:
. Bucket id (6 digit) of other linkcards users from a distance.
. Email, messenger, or any other social sharing apps on the users smartphone.
. Nearby – select multiple nearby Linkcards users to share the business card at once.
. Use Sms for offline sharing or with no internet connection.
Linkcards business cards can be shared using:
. Bucket id (6 digit) of other linkcards users from a distance.
. Email, messenger, or any other social sharing apps on the users smartphone.
. Nearby – select multiple nearby Linkcards users to share the business card at once.
. Use Sms for offline sharing or with no internet connection.
The business care is shared as a Link from the server with a Pre-default Formal Message.
A shortcut/ widget allows to share the business card directly from the home screen of our smartphone device, no need to launch the app everytime to share the card which saves the RAM consumption.
Linkcards business cards are click to call, email, visit website or connect on social media profiles of the card owner.
Update your business card anytime, it gets updated everywhere. The receiver is always up-to-date.
Linkcards also allows to Scan all the business cards we receive at meetings and events, The app then converts it into a digital format and stores in the Linkcards wallet, organize in different folders for easy search. These digital cards allows to call, sms, email or visit the website on the card directly from the App.
Maintain a profile – Add skills and experience which can be viewed by the people we share our business card with, setup reminders or meetings and syc with any calender.
Linkcards business cards are click to call, email, visit website or connect on social media profiles of the card owner.
Update your business card anytime, it gets updated everywhere. The receiver is always up-to-date.
Linkcards also allows to Scan all the business cards we receive at meetings and events, The app then converts it into a digital format and stores in the Linkcards wallet, organize in different folders for easy search. These digital cards allows to call, sms, email or visit the website on the card directly from the App.
Maintain a profile – Add skills and experience which can be viewed by the people we share our business card with, setup reminders or meetings and syc with any calender.
Monitizing it with Linkcards for Business – Subscription based Enterprise SaaS which provides a dashboard for companies to manage teams, secure 100% leads generated by teams, Back-up in Excel, get Insights of each card shared such as views and clicks, predict true prospects to followup and increase the rate of conversion.
This Enterprises version is currently been used by few enterprises for managing leads and teams under the trial version.
This Enterprises version is currently been used by few enterprises for managing leads and teams under the trial version.
The App currently has more than 7500+ Installs on both Adnroid and IOS.
5.Share the idea or story behind the venture. How did it came to an existence? What motivated you to start your own venture?
With experience in sales and business development for almost 3 years which made me realize the hassle with paper business cards. The sales professionals finds it difficult to maintain sales reports, updated followup reports and lead database and is also time consuming. It is also difficult to share the leads with teams which decreases the sales conversion rate. Hence, with enough experience of the hassle and academic knowledge in to software designing and development motivated me to come up with these idea of Linkcards.
6.Who are your biggest competitors and how do you differentiate yourself from them?
Currently there are two biggest competitors – Haystack and Eight.
Eight is based out in Japan and Haystack is an Australian company providing their services in India. They have been in the market quite early but Linkcards features and offering makes it unique from them attracting professionals to install the App providing better value preposition.
7.How did you identify your co-founder / Investor? Tell us some thing about your co-founder/s
Linkcards being Bootstrapped till the initial launch on Android, it attracted the attention of an Independent Investor from Japan who joined Linkcards as a Mentor/ Board member and Invested a a seed of $50k. His input and year long experience provides great value to the development of Linkcards.
8.How did you hired your first team members? What skills Do you want in your employees/team?
Linkcards being Bootstrapped and later funded with a seed. Since its a tech startup, it requires regular maintenance and support. Hence, to save on cost; the Marketing, development and other operations has been outsourced to various consulting agencies.
9.What expansion plans are you looking for the next 2 years, next 5 years?
Will be integrating Linkcards for Business SaaS at various Enterprises having a dedicated sales teams or management teams who need to regularly generate leads and works on targets closers. Going International partnering with consulting agencies which will help us to reach out to the prospecting enterprise and easily integrate linkcards solutions across their teams.
10.Where do you want to see yourself in next 10 years?
Want every professional to go digital with Linkcards App and share their business cards using our digital platform. No printing paper cards, no physical cards holders, no manual sales reports;g chaning the age old tradition of sharing paper cards with Linkcards.
Want every professional to go digital with Linkcards App and share their business cards using our digital platform. No printing paper cards, no physical cards holders, no manual sales reports;g chaning the age old tradition of sharing paper cards with Linkcards.
11.What are your goals over the next 1, 3, 6 and 12 months?
Answer for question no. 9 resembles the same answer for this question.
12.Have you raised any funding? Or have any plans for the funding?
Linkcards has succesfully raised a Seed of $50k from an Independent Investor from Japan. Currently looking to Integrate Linkcards at Enterprises to generate revenue and self fund the venture with revenue.
13.What were the problems you faced during the starting days and how did you resolve them?
As Linkcards is a very new product in the market, defining a business model for it was quite a hassle as this has been disruptive. Touching a very new market is challenging.
14.What was the most challenging part of your journey till now? How did you overcome those challenges?
Market validation, as India is a very diverse market; it requires time for a every new product to gain trust and emerge as a valuable thing which can solve a basic problem of networking.
15.Are you married, single or in a relationship?
Single.
16.What are your hobbies? What do you do in your non-work time?
Watching Movies, reading Fictions and Long Walks.
Watching Movies, reading Fictions and Long Walks.
17.Whats your favorite food & holiday destination?
Favorite food: North Indian
Holiday destination : Maldives and Bahamas
18.Whom do you consider your idol or biggest motivator?
Elon Musk : The man who can see the future and has an ability to reform it.
19.What do you feel is the major difference between entrepreneurs and those who work for someone else?
Entrepreneurship is all about giving it back to the society. Even it applies to the people who work for someone else.
20.If you had the chance to start your career over again, what would you do differently?
I think whatever happens, happens for the good. My past experiences has made me do what i am doing today. So, No regrets. I am thankful.
21.How has being an entrepreneur affected your family & Social life?
Being an Entrepreneur is altogether a new journey. It has effected my life both good and bad.
22.Anything, you would like to say to our readers or upcoming entrepreneurs?
Don’t always try for the bigger problems, even the smaller problems can be solved very creatively and can change our life as well as others.
Don’t always try for the bigger problems, even the smaller problems can be solved very creatively and can change our life as well as others.
23.Tell us something about your education & family background.
I am a Computer Engineer by Qualification from Mumbai University. I belong to a business family. My father runs a Family Business into Textiles and my mother is a Home Maker.
24.What is your USP which makes it unique & different from other start-ups in similar domains.
Linkcards is all in one App which convert the age old culture of sharing paper cards into digital business cards. Linkcards allows users to share their business cards despite of distance and device type. It makes easy for the recipient to view the shared business cards and store into their address book. Linkcards makes card sharing more formal so the users can easily share their business card using its shortcut feature and without much bothering the recipients.
25. What do you think is the biggest threat to the success of small businesses & Start-ups today?
Non-Uniqueness of problem solving makes the startups fail.
26. Do you consider yourself successful and by what means do you measure success?
Success can be measured with customer satisfaction. Linkcards is in the market validation stage. Success comes later.
27.Please share complete name, address, phone number, email id & website of Your Business & Contact Person
Name – Kapil Agarwal
Address – Kandivli, Mumbai- India
Email – [email protected]
Website – http://www.Linkcardsapp.com
The Explainer video ( Youtube Link) – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrXlfKJ7C9U
Android App : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ct.linkcardapp
IOS App : https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/linkcards-business-cards/id1325030713?mt=8
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