Cardbox reimagines the address book as a social network. It’s the one central place to stay connected to the people in your life, without all the noise. No posts, no likes, no ads; just contacts. Manage only your own card, and subscribe to each other’s contact information with just one tap.
Hey Hunters,
I’m extremely excited and proud to announce my first startup: Cardbox 😁
After growing frustrated from outdated, incomplete, and duplicate contact information that had accumulated over the years, I realized that the concept of contact management has become really dated.
While we’ve seen a lot of innovation in email and calendar apps, the same can’t be said about contacts apps—even though we all use contacts, and the process of contact management hasn’t changed since the first smartphones. 🦖
At the same time, the detrimental effects of social media on mental health, relationships, privacy, and politics have become quite clear, and many people want to cut down on their social media usage. The problem is that when you leave social media platforms, you also lose your social networks (note the distinction). 🚷
Then it hit me. By combining contacts and social networking, I realized most issues with both could be fixed, and in hindsight combining them just makes so much sense. Why should you manage someone else’s contact information in this age of connectivity? So I got to building.
Enter Cardbox: the one central place to stay connected to the people in your life. Whether it’s family or friends, classmates or colleagues, teammates or clients; you can connect once on Cardbox and exchange the contact information necessary to stay in touch both online and offline.
Cardbox turns the concept of contacts on its head; everyone manages only their own card. When you connect with someone, you subscribe to each other’s contact information. I say subscribe, because here’s the kicker: when you edit any information on your card, the changes are instantly pushed to the device address books of your connections. 📲🆒
New email or home address? No more mass BCCs to notify everyone it has changed. Text or call someone from a new or temporary phone number? They won’t even know it. Different Twitter handle or moved to another messaging app? Just edit your card. 📝
I haven’t even gone into how you can arrange your contacts list by Group; how you can limit which specific fields you share with someone at any time; how you can find people by name, link, or Nearby using Bluetooth; how you don't have to remember another password because nobody likes passwords; how dark the Dark Mode looks; and how much your privacy is valued at Cardbox. The information on your card is encrypted, and only shared with your connections—not advertisers or data brokers.
Let me wrap this up with a special offer: the first 100 users who link their Product Hunt to their Cardbox card today get one free month of Pro! 💝
Other ways to get free Pro include the referral program, and the giveaway of one *year* of Pro on Twitter today. 🎁
Go claim that beautiful username while it’s still available! 🤩
Android users; I see you. I’ll be doing my very best to get Cardbox on Android this summer, so that nobody ever has to spend time on manual contact management again.
I’ll be here to answer any questions and feedback in the comments. Please enjoy!
–Doney
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Congrats. Will give it a whirl, but really hoping for this on a blockchain platform as we slowly take back ownership of our own data and maybe that means health data sooner than later. Thoughts?
@nelson_wells Thanks Nelson. I'm not sure blockchain would be a solution you'd want for this, seeing how blockchains are immutable and the data you want to share differs per person. That said I fully agree that data ownership is important and that's why I have decentralization/federation on the long-term roadmap!
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I've been wanting something like this.
Can I add a video pitch on the profile? It'd allow me to remember where I met people months later.
Can I search people based on their location both home city and GPS?
If I'm at a conference is there an easy way to allow people to mass add me? QR Code or ID number etc..
Thanks! Great work btw excited to see this take off!
@marcus_davenport Thanks Marcus, hope you and your circles enjoy!
I'm not all too sure what you mean by video pitch, but to help you remember where you met people you can tap the menu on any connection's card and tap Add Note. This allows you to write a short private note that appears under someone's name on their card, e.g. "Dentist", "Brody's Dad", or "Met at X conference".
Search results are not based on location yet, but this is planned. When that rolls out, search results will be sorted by proximity to the city in someone's home address (if the person enabled this).
At conferences the Nearby feature will be super handy. It shows everyone within Bluetooth range that has the app open. Just tap someone's photo to open their profile and request to connect. Alternatively, you can get a Pro subscription and claim a nice username, which you can share, or put on a business card as part of your link.
Hope this helps!
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@doney if a person goes to a conference or networking events the intro as to what they do will probably about stay the same.
So a video would help people remember why they took a person's information.
Then all you'd need is a nudge aka simple canned messages to initiate conversations.
The video will help me remember them months later even if I didn't meet them for work.
Just my thoughts as to what I'd want.
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First of all without an android version the app can never be truly useful, but that’s currently being made so I remain hopeful.
Other than that there are two serious issues.
1. No custom labels (so anything other than “personal,” “work” and “other”
2. This is a bit more complicated to explain. Let’s say I have two phone numbers and I only use WhatsApp with one of them. The app does not let me choose which of my numbers is my WhatsApp number, but rather assumes that I use both numbers on WhatsApp. In my case, I only use WhatsApp with my work number. If I share only my personal number with somebody, they will be under the false impression that they can contact me on WhatsApp. Please fix this @doney
Pros:
Lovely design and idea
Cons:
No Android version, no custom labels, problematic way of handling messenger profiles
The idea is simple but powerful: If you meet someone at a meetup or conference it's always fun to connect with them on social media, e.g. Twitter, but then you miss out on being able to DM them anywhere else unless you ask them what chats they use.
Pros:
- Awesome and simple design
- Discover nearby people
- Easy editing and nice shortcuts
Cons:
- Discovery via social media would be nice
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Hey @doney , I like the idea. The concept, looks and seems almost identical to Quickkonnect. You should check them out.
@cedric_von_halem Hiya Cedric! I took a quick look at Quickkonnect, and I'd say it's generally the same idea, but a different execution :)
Whereas your company took the code-scanning approach and seems to focus on business people, Cardbox offers a global search feature, allows people to share their card via a link or nearby using Bluetooth, and focuses on (I hate this term) consumers—for now ;)
And yes, we both seem to like green 👌🏼 I wish you and your company the best!
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Looks very good.
Always thought there is something to do in this space.
I saw a few attempts but never something convincing.
Will try when you release Android
Cardbox
Cardbox
Cardbox
First of all without an android version the app can never be truly useful, but that’s currently being made so I remain hopeful. Other than that there are two serious issues. 1. No custom labels (so anything other than “personal,” “work” and “other” 2. This is a bit more complicated to explain. Let’s say I have two phone numbers and I only use WhatsApp with one of them. The app does not let me choose which of my numbers is my WhatsApp number, but rather assumes that I use both numbers on WhatsApp. In my case, I only use WhatsApp with my work number. If I share only my personal number with somebody, they will be under the false impression that they can contact me on WhatsApp. Please fix this @doney
Pros:Lovely design and idea
Cons:No Android version, no custom labels, problematic way of handling messenger profiles
Cardbox
Cardbox
Dank Mono
The idea is simple but powerful: If you meet someone at a meetup or conference it's always fun to connect with them on social media, e.g. Twitter, but then you miss out on being able to DM them anywhere else unless you ask them what chats they use.
Pros:- Awesome and simple design - Discover nearby people - Easy editing and nice shortcuts
Cons:- Discovery via social media would be nice
Cardbox
Cardbox