Today’s interview with with Ketan Anjaria of Cardflick. Cardflick is an iPhone (and Android) app that’s gaining a lot of popularity. The app allows you to share business cards with other iPhone/Android users and has been featured on publications like TechCrunch, AppShopper and Usefultools.com. I caught up with Ketan to chat a little more about business cards, iPhones, analytics and building your app’s fame.
Now I know you’ll be biased on this one, but are digital business cards the future? I’m guessing you see a time in the future when printed business cards completely or at least partially disappear. Essentially what led you to create the app?
Ha, we’re over due on a blog post about that. Really, I came up with the idea in shower. Honest. I wanted to make something that was beautiful and elegant. The team is always coming up with ideas to improve the core experience.
I don’t think print needs to go away completely, but there are so many benefits with our solution that for 95% of people, digital makes sense. It’s too hard for small businesses to create a strong mobile brand right now, and lack of design expertise leads to poor results. We’re working with some of the top designers in the business to make cards.
Bump is a big competitor and their name seems to get raised in just about every interview you’re in. Where do you think Cardflick really stands out and what’s going to be the ‘thing’ that makes Cardflick the number one business card app?
http://www.quora.com/Why-hasnt-someone-built-a-dominant-digital-business-card-application-for-mobile
Fair enough – I think that’s a pretty concise answer!
Analytics for business cards sounds very interesting and very useful – I see the future as split testing business card designs, titles etc. Those in sales may even given a right testicle for something like that. Can you tell us a little bit more about this?
This is something in the pipeline for the future but you are on the right track. Right now print cards have 0 ROI. You’re essentially throwing it way. Did anyone link to the card? Did they check out your profile? Who’s the top designer in London? We hope to answer those questions and more.
The final question is a bit of a double-edged one. You were featured on TechCrunch which is fantastic, congratulations. Firstly, what effect did that have (e.g. traffic, seconday journalist/blogger pickup etc) and how would you recommend an app developer go about getting a similar level of coverage for themselves and their app?
All our coverage has truly been a blessing. It’s a combination having an amazing product that users rave about and the guts to reach out the people at blogs you care about. But don’t confuse press validation with market validation. Even before our TechCrunch articles we were getting good results. Your core experience has to be outstanding for people to care, even press. The biggest effect is not just press, but what your users are saying about you and how you respond.
Cardflick is free to download. You can find out more about it in the iTunes Store
