As a young startup you will find that you need an entrepreneur networking tool that ensures or sets you up for success. Time is limited but the goal is clear and wherever time can be saved it must. You will often have meetings, networking events or presentations where you have to show up, make friends and prove you are the right person to move with. The process has been mostly daunting for me, especially the contact detail collection part but i recently found a tool that makes contact sharing convenient.
Let’s take a look at the classic networking event. You have to carry with you at least a hundred business cards and have a fanny pack to carry the several hundred that you will get in return. The alternative is just adding phone numbers to your phone then contacting them later to get full details on where to find them, seeing the work they do or getting email details. Wait, isn’t this the purpose of carrying a diary with you? Maybe so, but the standard event nowadays has less tables and more “let’s walk around and meet each other”. That means awkwardly holding your diary in one hand while writing with the other. The image I have in my head now is a 90’s bus conductor, fanny pack around his waist and ticket book in hand. Not Cool.
There is an app that makes the networking process so much easier and it’s called DEET (feel free to follow the link to a Playstore download). I bumped into this app totally by accident while i scrolled through the my timeline during the Zimbabwean #DataMustFall twitter protest when their data prices increased overnight.
Entrepreneur Networking Tool: Convenience Born
Currently only available for android, what the app does is it allows you to create a profile within the app with all your details (see screenshot below) and once you have done that you can share that Profile through a QR code generated image that you can share via any means or that any one else with the app can scan from your phone. Sharing contacts has become a minutes thing for me. The next person leaves with not just my phone number but all the information they need to get in touch or decide whether or not they will.
Best Bits
- Tiny and easy to use. This app won’t take up too much space on your phone and it doesn’t require a lot to run. Smooth sailing all the way!
- No Internet Needed. Yup, this app doesn’t need the internet to work.
- Multi – Lingual. Like the showy girl who went to private school the DEET app boasts availability in five languages: English, Chinese, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish.
Multi – Profiles
It seems the creators of this app put it into consideration that as entrepreneurs we wear many hats. So yes in some cases I may be looking to get funding so maybe i will make sure you have my phone number, email address and other details including even my address; but what happens in the cases where I may just want you to have my socials (that’s my social media accounts) and website details? This is easily answered; the DEET app has an unlimited profiles function so you can create multiple profiles with the different details that you want to share. That’s a profile for each hat you wear.
Such functionality will probably work well for entrepreneurs who dip their hands in many cookie jars. Now you don’t have to worry about carrying a hundred cards for each of your business ventures. Just carry your android device and knock them dead. All you then have to do is press the name at the top of the home screen and you can choose which profile to make you default (and hence the shared profile).
Receiving Contacts
This is also quite easy. All one has to do is select Receive Deets which then opens a QR scanner, scan the DEET QR code (like the one below) on the other person’s phone and it automatically adds the contact to your DEET contact list. Once you have the contacts you can contact them directly from the app.
The less time one wastes on contact sharing the more time you actually have to interact and ask the questions that matter. Don’t just take my word for it, download the app from the Google Play-store and check out the DEET website and make your own decision. Time waits for no man, it’s up to us to improve ourselves and free up more time for the real networking.
