My new business card... is an email

I recently ran out of business cards and decided not to purchase any more. 

I'm sick of carrying cards around. I'm sick of running out. I'm sick of getting home from a conference with a stack of cards that I have to sort through and somehow digitize.

I actually had a pretty good system. I would take notes on the card about when and where I met someone. I'd also add any specific followup items. I would send all of my business cards to Shoeboxed and they scan them for me. After that I throw them into a 1 gallon plastic bag that currently holds every card I've ever received (just barely).

I wanted something better. Something that didn't cost money or create clutter. And of course I'm anti-paper so anything that eliminates the paper trail is a bonus for me.

I considered the various digital business card apps. But in the end, I just settled on a simple email template that I set up in Tout (one of my recent investments). 

Why email? Everyone has it. It's the default way I want to communicate with someone that I meet. Nobody has to install anything and there is nothing to explain. I just tap the Tout app on my phone, select the template, and hand them the phone to ask them to type in their email address. If I'm at my computer it is a similar process, but I can also customize the email before I send it.

Tout sends them a template email with my background and contact info. It even has a vcard attached so they can easily add me to their address book.

Here is my default template.

Howdy {first_name},

It was a pleasure meeting you at {x}. I am the Founder of OtherInbox – the cure for email overload. With almost a million signups we are one of the most successful email applications. Without you doing anything differently, our Automatic Organizer will scan your email and file shopping and social networking emails into folders so they don't clutter up your Inbox. We also make it easy to stop unwanted emails by simply placing them in the Unsubscribe folder.
http://www.otherinbox.com

I've been involved with email my entire career. I founded SKYLIST in 1996 in his college dormitory as a one of the first email marketing companies. In 2004, I created UnsubCentral to help email marketing companies comply with regulatory requirements. With customers like Disney, Microsoft and Nascar, both companies became top ranked solutions in their respective categories before they were purchased by Datran Media. I studied Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University and live in Austin, TX with my wife Amy and two children (number three due in August).

I also am an active angel investor and advisor to early stage startups. I brought together 20 others like me to form the Capital Factory early stage accelerator in Austin to mentor and invest in tech startups. Each summer we select 5 companies and work with them to accelerate their business towards profitability or their first round of funding.
http://www.capitalfactory.com 

This fall, I'll be joining with Bob Metcalfe and John Butler to teach a startup class at the University of Texas at Austin. We will be selecting teams of entrepreneurial undergraduate students from all departments to help them start their own company while still in school. 
http://www.1semesterstartup.com 

I've attached a vCard file with all of my contact information. You should be able to double click it to import into your address book.

Here is the most important stuff:
Email: josh@xxxxxx.com
Phone: (512) XXX-XXXX
Twitter: joshuabaer

I look forward to getting to know you better. Please reply with your phone number and any other information you would like to provide.

~Josh

What would you include in your intro email? 

What other digital business card solutions do you use? 

Let me know in the comments!

Comments

[moncler down]

Paper cards is a part of business ethic and they will never be eliminated

[baccarat]

Idea seems to be rather perspective. But there is another side of the medal. Paper cards is a part of business ethic and they will never be eliminated

[Marc Köhlbrugge]

You might want to take a look at CardCloud (http://cardcloud.com/) if you haven't already. It's different from other apps in that it doesn't require the other party to have the app installed as well (although it greatly enhances the experience).

I did an interview with the founder a while back:
http://interviews.betali.st/interviews/renato-valdes-olmos

[Gordon Mohr]

I've done this informally but using the intro-template is a nice step. (FYI, you have a paste-remnant in para2s2 where you refer to yourself in 3rd person.)

[Ben Hamill]

I met some folks at SxSW who were interesting and cool, but who wanted me to install an app on my phone to exchange contact info. Even when I did... I've never fired it up since, so I basically don't have the information. Plain email seems awesome.

The only thing I'd change is... your email is tl;dr. All that story of who you are seems like it should be on a custom landing page here or something. The email should say Hi {name}, we met at {some event}. I'm Josh and we talked about {probably OtherInbox}. And then you contact info with a "for more info about me" link that goes to the stuff you have above. Maybe I'm off, but that's my take.

[Joshua Baer]

I like email over the digital business card solutions I've seen because many of the people I want to share with are either too busy or too unsophisticated to deal with that stuff. I don't want to say, "I don't have a business card, but install this iPhone app and then I'll beam you my info." Email is the simplest and fastest way to connect that works for just about everyone.

[Adam Schepis]

This is definitely a cool idea, and since i discovered Tout a few days ago i have been itching to use it. That being said, there are a bunch of other players in this area right now (particularly in the mobile device space.) Bump, CardCloud, and SnapDat comes to mind immediately but i could have sworn I read some news about funding for some other players in this space.

Do you feel like "plain-old email" is a better solution? I can see a few advantages. First off, you template is written which speeds things up but you also have the ability to personalize it. You can tell a story in an email, and even on a physical business card, but not so easily in a vcard. Perhaps the other players in this space are moving in that direction as well?