Startups spend so much on printing physical business cards despite the paucity of funds. In the end, the cards are under-utilised or misplaced which a loss to the organisation. So, won’t it be a good idea if as a founder or salesperson, you are able to automate your business card? This will not only help you to cut costs, but it will also assist you in building a solid relationship with your potential client. Meet Meeula (pronounced: Mi:ula), a smart lead-generating business card, founded by Emmanuel Uduebholo that wants to cut the cost of printing business cards for startups and businesses in Nigeria. In this exclusive interview with Uduebholo, who is also the founder of mentorship.ng, he talks more about Meeula, how it works, why he founded the company, and much more. Excerpts
Can you tell us about Meeula?
Meeula is a smart lead-generating business card that allows you to both share your contact (social media links, website, payment link, phone number and email address) and also receive leads to your dashboard. Also, you can share your contact by just bringing your card near the smartphone of anyone or high ticket client you happen to network with physically.
So instead of having 100 pieces of paper cards, you can simply own a single customized smart card.
The way it works is that you start by signing up, and updating your digital profile page links, after which you order your custom card, which will be linked to your profile. In the course of networking with a high-profile individual, you can simply share your contacts and have them saved on their phones. When you bring your card near their phones, it launches your digital profile and they get to follow your pages, add your number and connect with you by sending you their email address via an input field which goes straight to your dashboard to be exported to your funnel.
Coaches, Growth and Partnership Executives, Consultants, E-commerce Owners, Sales and Marketing Executives, CEOs, and Corporate Professionals can use this New Smart LEAD Generating Business Card in their day to day physical networking activities to build smarter and stronger relationships with premium clients and individuals; share their contacts, generate email leads from high profile clients and then export to their nurturing or sales funnels all in seconds
What prompted you to establish your startup?
I discovered that a lot of money and opportunities get lost to a lack of skillful physical networking especially when it comes to continuing the conversation and having our contacts and their contacts saved for follow-up.
It was around a time I was trying to market mentorships.ng to some seasoned and experienced professionals at conferences. I was always the one giving out the regular paper business cards which weren’t effective. Sometimes people can be so busy, they receive dozens of cards daily and will likely end up forgetting your card in their pockets. There were also times I received business cards in order to continue the conversations but somehow I had to start all over again re-introducing myself especially when I had to pass through the gatekeepers ( secretaries) on the phone.
It was around this time I thought of creating a product that could both share contact information and get it stored in clients phones and also receive contact emails as leads. Though it seemed far fetched, but it was finally realized.
I started by asking some professionals on mentorships.ng what they thought about the product and concept and they all subscribed to the idea. This was what motivated me the more to build Meeula because of the existing community on the ground. But most especially to help executives and professionals in their day-to-day physical networking activities.
And the community on ground really liked the idea because of the Technology, certainty , smartness, cost-saving nature and confidence it brings in the game of physical networking.
The name Meeula was inspired from Meet U LAter. Painting the picture of people definitely going to continue their Conversations and transactions.
Tell us about the moment you decided to become an entrepreneur? What did you have to do to be where you are today?
I had just passion and also I had mentors. It all started from the Hebron Startup Lab 2017 that was supervised by Dr Stephen Oluwatobi, the current GCEO of Pertinence Group and Mr Damilare, the CEO of RealVest. That was where I developed my coding skills and got more interested in tech startups. We were taken on a tour to startups like Paystack when they recently got about 1million dollars in funding, and Hotels.ng. So weeks later I started Crefounder, a digital magazine app for entrepreneurs which really didn’t scale. I didn’t know my target audience, and I didn’t know how to get into the market either. So my team and I closed it to start something else two years later with the experience and feedback we gathered, we started mentorships.ng, which is really doing well today, a platform connecting graduates and young professionals with experienced industry veterans for one on one weekly mentorship. Then from here, two years later again, Meeula started.
Nigerians are not yet used to sustainable or environmentally-friendly startups. How do you intend to convince them to use your service?
Actually, I thought likewise until I saw the traction tech startups like Bolt, Paystack and the rest grow to become market leaders. I also discovered people love products that gives them a great experience, improves their lives, provide ease in day to day activities and make products that can serve as a platform or leverage to achieve their goals. And that’s the advantage of tech products.
Also I had the opportunity to speak to a couple of friends at Solutions17, a Sustainable and Development Goals initiative and they were amazed that it’s going to reduce the littering of paper cards around the streets, and preserve our forests because it’s a single smart card just like you have a single ATM card.
How will you describe the reception so far?
The reception so far has been great. People love it because it hits the pain, and also because of the smartness, confidence, speed and lasting impression it brings. It’s pronounced (mi:ula). Also because it helps them automatically build their email lists, export to sales funnels and build a real network from physical networking. We’ve been keeping it low for sometime inorder to test and improve on it with feedbacks.
Can you tell us about Meeula’s value proposition and how you make money?
Meeula receives its revenue mainly through sales of cards. And we have three tiers. The Economy, The Premium Customizable Card and the Enterprise Card for Business Teams. The Enterprise Tier allows companies & HRs to access admin privileges and analytics. They get to access all the leads their employees generated for the company for official follow-up. HRs can simply Register all employees and order cards for every one of them. They have the privilege to also Deactivate cards of Employees leaving the company as well.
Capital and funds are key to starting a business? How did you go about funding Meeula?
The profits from Mentorships.ng made it possible to fund Meeula. Thanks to Piggyvest that made it possible to save up for Mentorships.ng. So Meeula is 100% bootstrapped by Mentorships.ng. It made it possible to develop the platform and other resources needed for it’s success.
Many startups fail in their first five years. What measures are you enshrining to ensure that Meeula is here in the next five, 10 and 20 years?
First of all, the reason startups fail maybe because they lacked market for their products or sometimes it may be coming from the team and the marketing that was put in. But Meeula is one built to last. It has come to stay and disrupt the business card industry. We have concrete marketing channels on the ground, series of sustainable partnerships with organizations and organizations’ community leverage. So a concrete Distribution channel is on the ground. And also it’s a product that’s capable of marketing itself and creating curiosity when used by people.
What are the challenges of running your startup?
Plans on keeping up with the volume of orders and consequently production is one thing we are working very hard on. And as such we planned to schedule our sales and delivery seasons. Every month, the first and third week to receive orders and then the third and first week for delivery. But we are currently doing our best to work on the time logistics which we have figured out and will be implemented.
What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?
I will advise budding entrepreneurs to focus on building a community and build what people want. To listen to their community even in the iterating stage. Have a good team of people sharing the same vision and passion and most especially learn to market. No matter how good a product is if it’s not well marketed no one will use it. Marketing is about understanding where your customers are in their journey and offering to take them to where they aspire to be. It goes beyond the demographic. Marketing is psychology. Marketing the experience it brings and justifies with the logical function of the product.
