

QR Card Us–Business Cards with vCard in QR Code, Support a Student, Entrepreneur - michaelschade
http://qrcard.us/

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martinshen
I don't really understand why you're promoting yourself as a student
entrepreneur. If anything it is a major deterrent from me using your service.
For starters, I wouldn't really trust a service from someone who advertises
themselves as a student entrepreneur as it sound unprofessional as if I should
excuse bugs because you're a student. Also, I think this only used to be
impressive... like in the 90s or even early 2000 but now it just seems like
you're trying to hard to pitch yourself as a student. I think this works
against you more than you think (especially considering that you're already in
College).

Things like MindSnacks got attention because they were HighSchoolers but also
that their product was actually relatively complicated and very polished.
Tumblr's founder also started in HS but we rarely hear about that. Kiip's
Brian Wong (aged 19) uses age 19 as just link bait and is only because he
raised a lot of money AND graduated university already. My buddies who run one
of the leading PPI networks is also just 19. Mark Bao is another impressive
high school kid running threewordsme etc. etc.

When I was 18, I thought what I was doing was impressive (I'm 21 now), I tried
to ride the "I'm a teen" buzz wave at my last startup Weels Corp when we
launched at DEMO. I ran into the issues I'm speaking of above. Now, a little
wiser, I launched my new site UpOut.com. I don't plan to use the "I'm young"
buzz even though my cofounder is still 19... I plan to write some thoughtful
blog articles on running a startup in college but that is definitely not part
of my marketing plan.

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michaelschade
This is something that I've gone back and forth on myself when thinking about
such using "Student/Entrepreneur." These are excellent examples for your
point, and something I'll take into account as I continue to debate with
myself over this.

I certainly, at least, had not thought of it from the perspective that using
this fact might imply I was saying to excuse imperfections. That's of course
not my intention in it, so the fact that it came up at all gives definite
reason to continue considering changing this.

Thanks!

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michaelschade
I appreciate your guys' help in shaking this out and sharing it with your
friends! I've tried to minimize the price as much as possible and will
continue to do so as I can run across deals, but am hopeful I can both help
some people with these cards while also supporting my education and bootstrap
my next venture.

I also wouldn't feel right if I launched something without open sourcing
something to keep the balance, so I've implemented vCard 3.0 (RFC 2426) in
Haskell: <http://mschade.me/announcing-hs-vcard>
(<http://hackage.haskell.org/package/hs-vcard>)

Thanks! Let me know what you think.

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eggbrain
One thing I'd say -- there is too much information about you there. The first
thing I read at the top was "Hi, I'm Michael, a student and entrepreneur, and
I've created a business- and environmentally-friendly product I think you'll
like." This isn't important to your product, and it just seems like a bunch of
fluff. Then further down you have more information on the left side about you.
To be frank, I came to your website to learn more about your product. Focus
more on what you are offering and less about introductions.

Just my two cents.

~~~
michaelschade
Thanks, I'll take this into consideration as I look into better structuring my
content. I was trying to find a nice balance between the personal appeal of
why I'm doing this/who I am (so I'm not just some faceless organization
putting out a product) and the product itself.

I appreciate your input!

~~~
eggbrain
I get the personal appeal, but the problem is you only get x seconds from a
users attention before they move on to the next site. If the first words on
the website are "Hi, I'm J and I have something great to show you", I think to
myself "Great, that's why you have a website, why didn't you use that space to
actually show me rather than talk about it?"

It also might go against you to mention things like you are 19 years old and a
freshman at college. If I am a business and want to order cards from you, I do
an analysis: would I pay a steep price ($36 for 250 cards) to get something
from someone who may be less experienced in business practices (or in
production in general) because they are still in college, or order from a
known website that's cheaper?

There's nothing preventing you from having a separate link at the footer of
the site for "About" describing the things you mentioned, but if you are
trying to sell something, you don't want to include any unnecessary
information to push people away from buying from you. If people have credit
cards in hand, you don't want to keep talking about how much you love
photography!

(I hope you don't take any offense to anything I said, I'm really just trying
to tell it like it is)

~~~
michaelschade
No offense taken at all, certainly. I wouldn't have posted here if I didn't
want feedback!

And to that point, I totally appreciate it, and plan on taking a hard look at
how I present the information to look for more effective ways to get my
message across without rambling about myself.

I guess I take a slightly different perspective, so it's nice to hear another
point of view. I will typically buy from an individual before I will some
larger organization, even if they have less experience, as long as they can
show that they know what they're doing (and I've grown up in a print shop and
have input from my mom who grew up and owned one herself, knowing the ins and
outs of such production).

Although, I do want to add that I don't agree that $36 for 250 cards is
terribly steep. Keep in mind that this includes any tax and shipping. I do
admit it's not the best price, compared to some services, but it's not
horrible either, and in all likelihood the price will be less than that when
one's card is actually charged (as I can typically work out a deal with my
printer, but those aren't consistent–I'm working on a standardized pricing
plan).

That said, it's useless for me to have to explain that here, I should be
looking into conveying that point on the website if necessary or removing the
background information altogether ;)

