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How Business Cards Survive in the Age of LinkedIn

The archaic business card endures despite several companies’ attempts to provide the killer app that will become Business Card 2.0

By
Roger Bennett

The Six Rules of Business Cards

By all logic, this gesture should have gone the way of the telegram

Photograph by Getty Images

A product of French ingenuity during the reign of Louis XIV, the humble business card should be among the dead and buried in this era of social media and cloud computing. Mo Koyfman, a principal at the venture fund Spark Capital, captured the prevailing mindset of many forward thinkers when he recently declared, “I despise business cards. Using them feels so horse-and-carriage.”

Koyfman is not alone. Search for “business card is dead” and you will discover an avalanche of obituaries. But reports of the 3 ½-by-2-inch business staple’s death appear to have been greatly exaggerated. Despise and deride it all you like, but the business card remains a growth market. How has this 17th century technology not just survived but continued to flourish?

If business cards were to die, the prime suspect would be LinkedIn, the professional social networking platform reported to have engaged 135 million users in more than 200 countries. “Business cards were originally invented for reasons of legitimacy,” says Nathan Shedroff, design strategist at California College of the Arts. “But since the 1980s, when you could custom-print 50 fake cards and pass yourself off as anyone, a résumé has become more trustworthy. [This is] the area in which LinkedIn is king.”

LinkedIn acquired CardMunch in January 2011, an app designed to instantly scan and store the information on a business card, creating digital contact details. Co-founder Sid Viswanathan was originally inspired by the drudgery of transcribing a mountain of cards garnered at a tech conference. The task took four hours by hand, offering plenty of time to dream up a more effective method. “The business card’s weakness is that it is a flat, one-dimensional piece of paper that goes out of date immediately,” Viswanathan explains. “CardMunch connects it to the résumé in the digital world so you get to know the person behind the card—the what and the where, not just the who.” CardMunch was relaunched last November with its recognition abilities now integrated into LinkedIn’s vast network of résumés, relegating the business card to a mere gateway to the social network. But even Viswanathan concedes there’s a long way to go. “The business card remains pervasive. Our goal is not to kill it but to thoughtfully replace it.”

A bold ambition, and LinkedIn is not the only product placing the business card in its cross hairs. A veritable firing squad of awkwardly named applications, including Cardcloud, CardFlick, DooID, uME, and TwtBizCard, are hellbent on providing the killer app that will become Business Card 2.0.

A closer look at the learning curve of one of the most buzzed-about contenders, Bump Technologies, illustrates the hidden challenges these aspiring category killers face. Bump stripped the business card of its aesthetics and made it transferable on iPhone or Android platforms via a simple tap of devices. “There is nothing more satisfying than knowing your contact information is going right into someone’s phone rather than left to languish in a drawer,” says Sadie Bascom, whose job title is Bump Evangelist.

The product was fast out of the gate, reporting 53 million users since its March 2009 launch, but a recent internal evaluation surprised its founders. The deep dive revealed that despite its design as a business product, it was primarily serving an after-hours function as a social tool. “There are so many barriers we have encountered within the business world,” Bascom admits, “Not everyone has Android or iPhones, BlackBerry users can’t bump, and huge conference centers often have poor wireless reception, which leads to dropped signals.”

CardMunch and Bump are good illustrations of ideas sounding better than their realities, says Koyfman. “CardMunch is a mere bridge technology, and there is too much friction surrounding successful bumping for it to succeed.” Other analysts believe the business card has a secret lo-fi strength that even the most Asimov-esque flight of fantasy cannot replace: “The act of theater surrounding the exchange of a business card allows for flirtation, self-expression, and recognition,” says Shedroff. “Bumping may be fun, but in comparison to analog business card exchange it’s the difference between having sex and merely exchanging bodily fluids.”

Steve Blank: Who Dares Wins — 2nd Annual Int'l Business Model Competition

Alexander Osterwalder and I spent last week in Salt Lake City, Utah as judges at the 2nd Annual International Business Model Competition, hosted by Professor Nathan Furr, and his team at the BYU Center for Entrepreneurship.

The idea of a Business Model competition first emerged when I realized that Business Plan writing ought to be taught in English departments — as they’re the best example of creative writing entrepreneurs will ever do.

The Business Plan ?– a Roadmap for Execution

When venture capital teamed up with technology entrepreneurs in the 1960s they brought with them the canonical MBA planning tool — the business plan.

The business plan is a wonderful document for organizing and planning for existing companies to launch follow-on products. In an existing corporation, the business plan is the execution document for sustaining innovation.

The problem is that once a plan is written it’s static and assumes minimal new learning. This makes sense in a company where your customers, channel and competition are known. And your revenue plan is something more than a hallucination. But for startups, business plans fail to match the chaotic reality they encounter in the real world. Yet year after year, decade after decade, VCs would watch as no startup business plan survived first contact with customers. So what did the venture industry do? They kept insisting startups write business plans as the price of entry to venture funding.

Why?

VCs thought of startups as smaller versions of large companies. Large companies wrote business plans, so VCs made startups write business plans. Large companies had VPs of Sales and Marketing, so VCs made startups organize that way as well. Large companies executed plans well and when they didn’t work, they fired the executives who screwed up. So VCs assumed that startups should equally unfold per the plan — firing executives when reality intruded.

The reality is that startups needed a new class of management tools. Tools to help them manage the search for a repeatable and scalable business model. Startups needed tools to help them organize their hypotheses, and then needed a process to rapidly test those hypotheses. And they needed tools that recognized that most startups go from failure to failure as they searched for, and discovered, product/market fit. And that instead of firing executives to match a plan, it was the plan itself that needed to rapidly iterate.

Business Plan vs. Business Model + Customer Development

The term business model first appeared about 50 years ago, but the concept didn’t catch on until the 1990s. It wasn’t until 2010 when Alexander Osterwalder published his book Business Model Generation that it became clear that this was the tool to organize startup hypotheses.

It was long before Alexander and I realized that organizing hypotheses with his canvas was just the first step in building a business. The next step was getting out of the building and testing the business model in a formal process — and that process is Customer Development.

We’ve blogged about the combined methodologies here and here. Our Lean LaunchPad class at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia and the National Science Foundation teach the combined Business Model Canvas + Customer Development tools. My new book, The Startup Owner’s Manual integrates the two.

Three years ago, after watching my nth business plan competition I realized this was simply wrong. Rather than having students invest months writing a 100-page tome and polishing slides that taught them almost nothing about what it was really like to build a company, I thought there had to be a better way.

I suggested that we hold competitions that actually emulated the real world (rather than what’s easy to grade) and hold competitions that emulate what entrepreneurs actually encounter – chaos, uncertainty and unknowns. A business model competition would emulate the “out of the building” experience of real entrepreneurs executing the customer development / business model / agile development stack.

You can write a business plan slide deck in your dorm or library. But you can’t fake a business model/customer development presentation. It takes a ton of face-face customer interactions.

The International Business Model Competition

From the seed of this initial idea Professor Nathan Furr at BYU did the hard work and created a global business model competition, this year receiving over 100 submissions. The finals were held in the packed 1,000 seat BYU auditorium with lines of students outside unable to get in.

(I love walking around the BYU campus. It feels like being at a giant Eagle Scout convention.)

It was an eye-opener to see each of the teams take the stage to describe their journey in trying to validate each of the 9 parts of a business model, rather than the static theory of a business plan.

Each team used the business model canvas and customer development stack to go from initial hypotheses, getting outside the building to validate their ideas with customers, and going through multiple pivots to find a validated business model.

All of the Business Model finalists were pretty amazing. Each one of these presentations moved the teams closer to building a real company.

This years winner were:
1. XoomPark, BYU
The XoomPark team spoke to over 300 people (customers and channel partners,) ended up with 2 partners, 30 parking lot customers, a working website and a validated revenue model.

If you can’t see the slide deck above, click here.

Excelagrade

If you can’t see the slide deck above, click here.

Auto bid final presentation
If you can’t see the slide deck above, click here.

Flex leg intl bmc final without video

If you can’t see the slide deck above, click here.

Steve Blank’s blog: www.steveblank.com

Follow Steve Blank on Twitter:

www.twitter.com/sgblank

Greek Woman Threatens Suicide As Austerity Cuts…Prescription Drug Abuse Crackdown Hits CVS and…Mitt Romney’s Stance On Auto Bailout Doesn’t…Weekly Jobless Claims Fall To Four-Year Low

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Small Business Is Big Business

Micro businesses in the United States represent an important economic segment and will be an important factor in our economy. They are major contributors to job growth and form a huge block of the total outstanding business community and tax base. Today Micro Businesses face five major challenges in order to flourish and survive:

Capital or Finance

• Technological Advances
• Embracing E-Commerce or The Internet Advantage
• Navigating Health Insurance
• Outsourcing When Available

Many businesses today cannot find funding or loans for their business. Whether a business owner is looking to refinance existing bank debt or growth capital, money is hard to come by. Without funding, micro businesses across the US will struggle. The bank-lending crisis and depressed equity values in homes have reduced the amount of available dollars to micro business. The Small Business Authority has programs suited for business with modest employee headcount.

Without understanding what software, hardware and business processes are the latest, greatest and most cost effective, micro businesses cannot compete. Products such as cloud computing can turn a struggling micro business into a profitable machine by reducing cost, improving security and enhancing business functionality. The Small Business Authority has solutions for Micro Businesses in the Cloud that can turn micro business owners into strong competitors.

The Internet has been the world’s great equalizer for micro business. How in the world can a micro business compete today with capital shortages and an environment that is friendly only to big business? All we need to do is observe the success of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg as an inspiration to what one can do with knowledge an idea and correct utilization of the Internet’s strength. The Small Business Authority’s Internet tools can take a micro business to higher highs by building web presence, web traffic, web security and maximizing client experience, reach and payment flow.

The ultimate challenge to Micro Business in 2012, 2013 and 2014 will be how the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act will affect small business. The landscape is treacherous as many questions exist and changes in the environment are transpiring with speed and magnitude. Without a road map, a go to source for information and up to the minute information, micro businesses will not be able to provide for the health, safety and cost for their staff and families. The Small Business Authority has the answers for you and your company. Come to our 50 state licensed National Insurance Agency at the Small Business Authority for cost free advice and service for all your rapidly changing health insurance and benefits needs – specifically designed for the micro-cap companies

Micro Cap Companies are, by definition, too small to be able to have in house IT, Payroll or HR Staff. Outsourcing these vital services and needs are important for Micro Cap business to be able to compete, lower their business risks and do so without the expensive non-levered internal staff. Capabilities such as human resource software modules (for as little as $30 per month) are quite attractive to a micro business owner who may otherwise hire a PEO or internal HR person. Outsourcing payroll and shifting tax liability risk for payroll tax reporting is also an intelligent choice, The Small Business Authority has many ways to save Micro Businesses money while reducing their risk.

We at the Small Business Authority are dedicated to making independent micro businesses owners succeed in a thought changing and challenging environment. We recognize that Small Business is Big Business and that you all add up to a universe of clients that are important to the American economy. We welcome your thoughts, participation and questions as you come to our Forbes blog and with your Challenges and needs daily.

Most importantly we realize that all the micro businesses have tight budgets. At the Small Business Authority, we have programs designed with free trial months (Newtek Payroll, Cloud Computing Services), programs with no set up fees (NewtPay and NewtPay Mobile), and programs that offer free website software and setup.

At the Small Business Authority you can speak with our Business Service Specialists for information as our time is on our dime.

Harvard Business School to Host Leadership Development Program for Pharmaceutical and Biotech Industry Leaders

BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Harvard
Business School (HBS) will host an executive education program, Leadership
and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech, running April
9–14, 2012 on the HBS campus.

Today’s pharmaceutical and biotech executives face a rapidly changing
and complex marketplace as the economics of healthcare are transformed
and developments in technology, mergers, acquisitions and government
regulations create new challenges and opportunities. Designed for senior
executives and small teams, Leadership and Strategy in
Pharmaceuticals and Biotech will offer participants insights into
critical areas for established and emerging companies, such as improving
profitability, organizational change, intellectual property and global
pricing and distribution.

“Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech will
engage industry leaders using active learning and practical, real-world
insights to examine the obstacles and opportunities that face the
industry in the years ahead,” said David B. Yoffie, Max and Doris Starr
Professor of International Business Administration and Senior Associate
Dean and Chair of Executive Education. “Participants will further
develop leadership skills to improve corporate performance and tackle
management challenges unique to the fast-evolving pharma and biotech
environment.”

Throughout the week, HBS faculty with diverse specialty areas including
business administration, management, marketing, operations management
and organizational development, will guide participants through analysis
of complex intellectual property scenarios, examination of pricing and
distribution techniques and identification of effective ways to develop
and market innovative products.

“Creating capabilities for technological innovation, developing
long-term business strategies, building an organization in the face of
change– these are a few of the many skills executives must be equipped
to compete in the global pharmaceutical and biotechnology environment,”
said Gary P. Pisano, Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business
Administration and faculty chair of Leadership and Strategy in
Pharmaceuticals and Biotech. “Together, our distinguished group of
faculty and peers will help participants assess alternative business
models, competitive strategies and financial approaches to enhance
leadership capacity.”

Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech will use a
combination of HBS case studies, interactive classroom discussions and
guest lectures to teach leaders from pharmaceutical and biotech
industries effective management and leadership skills for their
organizations.

Program Details:

Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceuticals and Biotech will run
from April 9–14, 2012 and will take place at Harvard Business School.
Please visit http://www.exed.hbs.edu/programs/lspb/
for complete curriculum details and to apply.

Leadership and Strategy in Pharmaceutical and
Biotech

(April 9–14, 2012, Harvard Business School)

Faculty:

Arthur
A. Daemmrich, Assistant Professor of Business Administration and
member of the Business, Government and International Economy Unit and
the Healthcare Initiative.

Gary
P. Pisano, Harry E. Figgie, Jr. Professor of Business
Administration and member of the Technology and Operations Management
Unit, the Healthcare Initiative and the Science-Based Business
Initiative. Pisano is faculty chair of Leadership and Strategy in
Pharmaceuticals and Biotech. (More information on Professor Pisano’s
work can be found here.)

Vicki
L. Sato, Professor of Management Practice at Harvard Business
School and Professor of the Practice in the Department of Molecular and
Cell Biology at Harvard University. Sato is a member of the Technology
and Operations Management Unit.

Michael
L. Tushman, Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor of
Business Administration, member of the Organizational Behavior Unit and
faculty co-chair of Leading Change and Organizational Renewal.

About Harvard Business School:

Harvard Business School Executive Education, a division of Harvard
Business School, is located on a 40-acre campus in Boston,
Massachusetts. HBS faculty develop and deliver over 80 open-enrollment
Executive Education programs and more than 60 custom programs for
leading organizations worldwide. Last year, more than 9,000 business
executives attended programs in classrooms across the globe, including
Boston, London, Mumbai, and Shanghai. With global research centers in
seven key regions, HBS faculty continue to develop groundbreaking
research, forge powerful alliances with global organizations, and
fulfill the mission of educating leaders who shape the practice of
business and innovation.

Paychex Launches Business Insurance Payment Service

ROCHESTER, N.Y.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Paychex, Inc., a leading provider of payroll,
human
resource, and employee
benefits solutions for small and medium-sized businesses, today
announced the introduction of its Business Insurance Payment Service,
available for business
owner (BOP), commercial
auto, and umbrella
policies sold by Paychex Insurance Agency through The Hartford, Guard
Insurance Group, and Travelers insurance companies.

With the Business Insurance Payment Service, policy holders can elect to
have Paychex pay premiums on their behalf using a pay-as-you-go monthly
billing method that helps minimize the up-front premium deposit
typically required. Policy owners will also experience fewer
administrative burdens by no longer needing to keep track of due dates,
determine the correct premium, or remember to send payments.

“Paychex pioneered the pay-as-you-go method within the payroll industry
for remitting insurance premiums when we first introduced our Workers’
Compensation Payment Service 15 years ago. We’re now building on that
success with this latest offering for the business insurance coverage
that business owners need before their business is fully established, or
before they even open their doors,” said Kevin Hill, Paychex vice
president of insurance and human resource services solutions. “With this
value-added service, we’re making it easier and more affordable for
business owners – whether they’re just starting out, or are
well-established – to acquire the insurance they need to protect
themselves and their business.”

The service calculates the monthly premiums at the start of the policy
year, providing business owners with the exact amount they will pay
throughout the plan year. If a mid-year change in coverage results in a
change in premium, the service seamlessly recalculates and equalizes
what is deducted in each of the remaining billing periods.

The Paychex Business Insurance Payment Service offers business owners:

• convenient, accurate, and on-time payments,
• budgeted premiums to even out cash flow,
• minimal start-up costs, and
• real-time updates that reflect any changes to the estimated annual
  premium.

The service is available to new and existing Paychex Insurance Agency
clients, occurs at the start of the policy year, and does not require
the policy holder to be a Paychex payroll client.

For more information about business insurance through Paychex Insurance
Agency and the Business Insurance Payment Service, visit http://www.paychexinsurance.com/businessprotection/business/index.aspx

Paychex Insurance Agency services approximately 103,000 clients and is
ranked the third largest U.S. Benefit specialist, according to Business
Insurance magazine and ranked #30 on the publication’s list of the
100 Largest Brokers of U.S. Business.

About Paychex

Paychex, Inc. (NASDAQ:PAYX)
is a leading provider of payroll, human resource, and benefits
outsourcing solutions for small- to medium-sized businesses. The company
offers comprehensive payroll services, including payroll processing,
payroll tax administration, and employee pay services, including direct
deposit, check signing, and Readychex^®. Human resource
services include 401(k) plan recordkeeping, section 125 plans, a
professional employer organization, time and attendance solutions, and
other administrative services for business. A variety of business
insurance products, including group health and workers’ compensation,
are made available through Paychex Insurance Agency, Inc. Paychex was
founded in 1971. With headquarters in Rochester, New York, the company
has more than 100 offices serving approximately 564,000 payroll clients
nationwide as of May 31, 2011. For more information about Paychex and
our products, visit www.paychex.com.

Stay Connected with Paychex

Twitter: www.twitter.com/paychex

Facebook: www.facebook.com/paychex

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/paychex/products