Tiny cards make a big business impression
David Cancel hated traditional business cards - too awkward and bulky for his jam-packed wallet. So he never carried them. That was OK when he was a behind-the-scenes technical guy.
But when he founded a company, he knew he needed a way to get Lookery, his Boston-based online advertising firm, noticed.
Tooling around the Internet, he found Moo.com, a website offering what he wanted: a business card about half the size of a traditional card that would cause contacts to remember his company.
Cancel, who serves as Lookery's chief technical officer, has given out a lot of his minicards, with just his name, URL, and e-mail address printed on them, mostly at conferences.
"They're a conversation starter for sure," he said. "Every time I hand them out, people say something about them."
The cards first took hold among the MySpace and Facebook generation as a way for people in a social setting to give out information such as their websites and e-mail addresses. But they are catching on among professionals, especially those who work in trend-setting fields such as online companies, design, or the arts.
They're easy to carry, are more environmentally friendly and cost-effective because they use less paper, allow for self-expression, and stand out, users say.
Distributing cards that are unusual sends a message about the executive and the company, said Karen Ong, chief executive and founder of Cambridge-based My Happy Planet.com, a language-education site.
"Being a small card, it has a lot of character. It says that we're different, that we're not like traditional, big companies," Ong said. "Having minicards definitely helps to stand out among the stacks of cards that are being handed out."
Moo.com, which launched the small cards in September 2006 with orders from 18 countries, has seen that grow to orders from 140 to 150 countries. The London firm sold 10 million cards in 2007 and recently launched a multilingual site.
Another website, Zazzle.com, launched what it calls skinny cards in March. Both sites allow users to design their own cards, by using provided images or by uploading their own images. Zazzle's skinny card is about half the height of a traditional business card, while Moo's minicard is about 1-by-2 inches.
"We're a canvas for people to share their businesses," said Richard Moross, Moo's chief executive officer and founder. "It helps people to show themselves off."
Both Zazzle and Moo executives say word of mouth has driven people to their sites.
Zazzle's founder and chief product officer, Jeff Beaver, said he was surprised that the nontraditional cards have taken off among professionals, particularly those at small businesses.
The fact that there are designs available on the site that small businesses wouldn't have the resources to create on their own is driving the interest among that group, he said.
"It's the same kind of desire for self-expression we're seeing all across the media," he said.
"It's just not cool as much anymore to have the standard-looking business card." 