Milestone #2
Identifying the problem
The idea appeared when one of us was taken to a business meeting by his father. After long
discussions, all the participants exchanged these coloured, small pieces of paper named business
cards.
The first question that came into his mind was: "Why do they still use these paper cards when
they can use
their smartphones? It has to be an application for that.".
After some research, at that time, there was no application for
doing this exchage quick and simple. Moreover, the people that were involved in the meeting were
asked the same question and they replied
that they do not know about such an application, but it would be useful and more esier to search
through all of
these cards when you need an info. Also, asked to be honest and say what are they going to do
with what they received, they said that probably it will be kept in a stack full of other
business cards in their office.
For that moment, we could only conclude that is was not the right time for such an upgrade
because
it could not fulfill the needs of the people that would use it and also that there is a problem
that can be solved.
Some years later, we are still asking people the same question, what are the advantages and
disadvantages
of using paper business cards, what do they think about using their phone in order to exchange
these data
and why do they still feel the need of using these cards.
Solution for the problem
Having the clear problem in mind, we decided that the solution that would best solve it is
connecting people
attending the same meeting easier with their most used tool, smartphones.
We believe in Bizy as an application that will be capable of storing the relevant
information for a person and
be ready to exchange it at any moment. The person will allow Bizy to share the data that he
desires from his profile. The core
is time effieciency and increase in producitivity because the more people connect and build
together, the better
projects are developed.
Moreover, our connecting application can be used as a searching and information gathering
tool regarding the
events attended and its people. A standard feature we consider is "Maybe you know". A
curious mind can use this
feature to discover certain persons with similar interests or job roles, eager to get in
touch.
Bizy also understands the problems the environment is facing and aims to help by providing
the online alternative
of traditional printed bussiness cards. Migrating into online encourage people to stop
producing a considerable
ammount of paper, that most of the time ends up lost between documents.
Plan for customer discovery
In order to gather usefull information about the potential client we thought that it
would help to give questionnaires to young people,
fresh graduates or bachelor students mainly (an easier segment due to the fact that we
can reach the segment faster), people in the business
environment (the segment we think that is going to embrace our solution the most) and
older people(the segment from which we don't expect the
most clients but we wanted to know how much our idea represents a solution for them too
because it is important when creating the MVP).
Reaching the first segment of potential clients is easier because the age difference is
not that big and the communication is easier. We are
interested in finding out how they transfer information between them currently, not
focusing on things like chatting but more precisely what the
chatting contains(e-mail addresses, phone numbers, or any other form of identification).
This segment is somehow volatile, new applications are
created quite frequentely and we would need to keep up with the pace in order to keep
the interest as fresh as possible with easy access to the
newest application after the accounts would be shared.
For the second segment we are interested to see if the problem we are trying to solve is
actually a problem for them. Because we know we address
to business people we know that the information transfer is more formal(e-mail
addresses, calls, conferences) and each information needed for
this kind of communication usually is represented by another account which needs to be
somehow shared, process that may take quite a while
considering personal preferences and the evolution of such methods of communication. To
reach this segment we could give questionnaires to
people we know from our internships, people from companies that we worked or work for,
and ask our acquiantances to spread the word and pass the
questionnaire we created.
From the third segment is important to gather information about what are the main
methods to communicate(face to face, online, calls, etc.). This
information is usefull because there is a high chance that the potential clients from
this segment may not use diverse methods of communication so
if our idea would sound good for them, we would probably need to adapt our solution in
such a way that it is not only providing a way of accessing an
existing method but integrate it in order to provide a familiar and at the same time new
experience.
Validating the problem using gathered data
We have shared our form in various places, and we have got 86 responses.
For the demographics, we have more male
responders than female responders, and the age group that is represented in the
strongest fashion is the 18-24 year old people.
About half of the people who answered claimed to
participating to social events at
least once a week, with about 37% participating at least twice a week to such
events.
The most popular data to exchange is the name,
phone number and Facebook profile,
although we cannot ignore the company and role in it, the Instagram profile or the
E-mail address, each of these having at least a 29% popularity among the
respondents.
The most common solution, by far, used by our
responders was the phonebook, although
on the second place (at about 18% of the responses) we notice physical business
cards as being a semi-popular choice.
As for the most common complaints, two issues have
been encountered by more than half
of our respondents, namely forgetting to exchange contact details between the
participants and simply not getting to know all of them. A few other responses that
have showed up in the responses relate to knowledge about the events themselves, as
in knowing the host, how formal the event is or the kind of event in the first
place.
If our responders were to create their own profile
to be easily shared, they would
choose to share simple contact details, such as name, profile photo, phone number
and E-mail address. A significant amount of responders also said that they want to
share what company they work at and their role there as well. Relatively fewer want
to share LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and other social media profiles.
The most preferred method to share such a profile
is via a mobile/web app, although a
public profile available on a social media website seems to also be preferred by
half of our respondents. Business cards are also chosen by nearly one third of them.
As for places where such a contact data exchance
feels needed, there are four
situations which are roughly equally represented: Parties, interviews, business
meetings and first encounters.
More than 66% of our respondents participated in at
most 5 business meetings,
although a non-negligible amount (about 15%) were at the other extreme and have
participated at more than 25 such meetings. Roughly similar proportions can be
noticed in the data for the amount of physical business cards that each responder
has used.
Most of our respondents store away business cards
after receiving them, although
slightly more than a quarter copied the data somewhere else and threw away the card
itself; these two categories make up more than three quarters of the responses we've
received altogether.
Users have various reasons to consider business
cards attractive, including but not
limited to ease of use, completeness of the information, ease of use or ease of
storing them away. As for cons to using them, more than 60% of our users consider
that pollution (from the ink and paper/metal) and the fact that the information on
them easily goes out of date make up the most important issues with them, though 40%
of users simply consider them unpopular.
For the data exchanged at business meetings, most
of our respondents shared names,
phone numbers, E-mail addresses, as well as the company they're working at and their
role there. A less popular but still notable data point, at roughly 28%, is the
LinkedIn profile.
As for issues in using business cards, nearly 60%
of our respondents complain about
failing to associate the business card with the actual person they received it, thus
making the business card less useful. Other two issues that were popular and tied
for second place, at roughly 43%, were one of the participants not having a business
card and thus having to write down the info on either paper or the phone manually.
For the data that the respondents actually look up
in the business cards, the
recurring pattern of name, phone number, mail address, company and role within the
company shows up again.
The problems actually encountered by the
respondents can be split in the following
categories: data on the cards becoming outdated, failing to find the person among
too many business cards, or the info on said cards being irrelevant anyway.
As for how much the respondents would spend on an
app that would resolve the problem,
a quarter wouldn't spend anything, a third would spend up to 2$, while another fifth
would spend between 3$ and 5$. In total, nearly three quarters of the responses are
up to 5$, and more than half are up to 3$.
Learning from possible customers
As result of our validation campaign, the results from our surveys are very
encouraging. As a majority of our
possible client base, we have answers
from young adults and adults that are participating to social events more than
one time per week, business
events or casual events. In terms
of what information is exchanged between individuals, when they want to keep in
touch with each other
there are a couple of elements
that come to our attention:
name, phone number and Facebook profile.
All this information is saved on the phone of each individual in their phone's
contacts and on Facebook app.
An encouraging fact for us is that people signaled a need in providing, through
an app, a personalised profile that
they want to share with other new peers in their
social context. From our data, they want to share the most: a profile
picture, name, company name and phone
number. Moreover, one of the most
important challenge that they face in big events is that they don't have the
opportunity to get to know
all people.
Some of the key challenges that we have observed
with the traditional contact
card are: the information on the
card could become outdated and the card can be
easily lost. There is one thing to mention, it can exist an unfortunate moment
when a person doesn't have a card
when the cards are exchanged and this can become
frustrating for all the parts involved.
Presenting our solution, most of the people that
answered the survey showed
interest for the idea even if the service
could be a charged product.
Making baby steps in the good direction
After analyzing the survey data, we noticed
people's desire to use a mobile
application that would allow a fast data transfer using NFC technology.
At the same time, after analyzing the survey
data, we observed the need for
people to give up the use of business cards.
We notice that the majority of people would
prefer a mobile application, so
we need some time in developing a mobile application maybe compatible with
both Android and IOS.
The next step is to implement the application
and to combine our ideas with
the ideas of potential users who completed the survey.
After implementing the application, we will share the application with close
friends.
If we receive positive feedback, we will improve it and launch it for other
users as well.
