The Team

Why We Created AliveCard

Our journey began more than a decade ago developing live chat call center solutions for various clients within sports, government, and education verticals.

The common theme we learned was that "More Conversations Create More Opportunities". If we could make it easy for organizations to connect with their prospects, this would increase the number of conversations and translate directly to new sales.

But, there was a problem: businesses needed to staff human agents to be available to chat with customers. And human agents can be expensive.

Recognizing the issue with lack of human resources, we started to build chatbot automation into our product. Now, customers could interact with a bot to get answers they needed, or submit their requests to the business - without needing a human operator.

One night in 2018, while sitting in our apartment during our Comcast/NBC Universal LIFTLabs/Techstars accelerator program in Philadelphia, we stumbled upon an iOS update - a QR code scanner was built right into the iPhone camera - which eliminated the need to download a separate app. This instantly made QR code accessible to millions of Apple iPhone users around the world.

BOOM - the "aha!" moment flashed into existence. What if we combined QR codes and chatbots? Then, coincidentally we had a stack of business cards laying around that we had used for a prior networking event. Everything that night just mixed together perfectly in a stew of success and the idea of "AI Chatbot Powered QR Code Digital Business Cards" was born.

While the excitement was there, the idea was short lived and decided to shelve it since we had to focus on our core product, Alive5.

After the pandemic, we saw a huge demand for a term called "Digital Transformation". The global crisis had pushed many brick and mortars to "go digital" and adopt new "digital strategies" in order to survive. It is estimated that the pandemic fast-forwarded the world digitally 8-10 years. We saw QR codes, no-touch menus, and AI/automation becoming mainstream - almost everyone had learned to scan a QR code when a year ago they were mostly unheard of.

Here we are now in May 2021, and as we reach a post-pandemic rebound in business activity, the habits have stayed - wash your hands, fist bumps over handshakes, and keep your distance from strangers.

It was time to bring back "AI Chatbot Powered QR Code Digital Business Cards", but this time, we needed a shorter name, and "AliveCard" seemed to work.

Introducing AliveCard

There's no paper, nothing to throw away, so it's environmentally friendly and waste-free. It's lightweight, so you don't need a stack of business cards wherever you go, and it's always available for anyone you meet to scan and exchange information. Just like American Express's slogan, "You'll Never Leave Home Without It" (you can't unless you don't have your phone with you - which is impossible these days).

As we get used to a "new normal" on a human level, how we conduct business "digitally" must also be re-learned - not as a "nice to have" but really a "need for survival" in this new landscape (if you're not digital, your competitors are).

Technological change may seem daunting and difficult, but our goal with AliveCard is to help businesses connect faster, create deeper customer relationships, automate the selling process, and ultimately be the guiding light towards achieving "Digital Transformation".