Devon Blog

Tag: where-you-met

  • What Is a Personal CRM (and How SnapCard Fits)?

    What Is a Personal CRM (and How SnapCard Fits)?

    A personal CRM is a tool that helps an individual organize, remember, and nurture their relationships over time, not a sales team pipeline. It acts like a smart digital Rolodex that stores contacts, context, and follow‑up reminders so relationships don’t quietly fade.

    Unlike traditional CRMs built for companies and revenue tracking, a personal CRM is lightweight, human‑first, and often mobile‑first, designed to support how you actually meet and remember people in real life.

    What does a personal CRM actually do?

    A personal CRM brings all your relationship context into one place so you don’t rely on memory or messy notes scattered across apps.

    Most good personal CRMs (should) focus on a few core jobs:

    • Store contact details (names, phones, emails, links) in one place.
    • Track when and where you met, and what you last talked about.
    • Let you add notes and tags so you can find people by “how you remember them”, not just by name.
    • Set reminders to reconnect so it’s easy to follow up at the right time, not months too late.

    The goal is not to automate spammy outreach, but to reduce the friction of being thoughtful and consistent with the people who matter to you.

    Key features of a personal CRM

    Most modern personal CRMs share a common feature set.

    • Contact organization: One place to store and organize people by tags, groups, or lists.
    • Interaction history: A timeline of meetings, messages, and calls so you can see where the relationship left off.
    • Notes and tags: Free‑form notes and flexible labels (e.g., “Met at Web Summit”, “Angel investor”, “Loves golf”).
    • Reminders and follow‑ups: Prompts to reconnect on a schedule that matches your intent, not just your inbox.
    • Privacy controls: You decide what to store and share; data is there to help you, not to sell or resell your relationships.

    A good personal CRM fits into your life quietly, so you can focus on conversations instead of admin.

    Why personal CRM matters for modern professionals

    Today, people meet more contacts than they can reasonably remember: at conferences, meetups, intros, and online. Most relationships fade not because we don’t care, but because context and timing slip away.

    A personal CRM helps by:

    • Keeping context alive (where you met, what you discussed, what you promised).
    • Making it easy to restart conversations without awkwardness.
    • Surfacing the right people at the right time, so you stay top of mind naturally.

    For freelancers, founders, salespeople, and multi‑hyphenate professionals, that can translate directly into more opportunities, better referrals, and stronger long‑term networks.

    How SnapCard fits into the personal CRM space

    SnapCard starts as a smart digital business card and grows into a privacy‑first personal CRM built for real‑world networking. It helps you remember where and when you met people, capture context instantly, and reconnect at the right moment.

    With SnapCard you can:

    • Share your digital business card in seconds via QR code, link, SMS, or email.
    • Automatically log where and when you met a new contact as they scan your card.
    • Add private notes and tags while the conversation is fresh.
    • Turn on “Keep in touch” style reminders so Snap nudges you periodically to reconnect.
    • Get contextual alerts when contacts are nearby or you’re back in a place tied to a past interaction (on supported plans).

    SnapCard is designed for people who meet others at events, conferences, and in daily life and want a system to help them keep in touch and for that system to feel human, not like a sales dashboard.

    Is SnapCard a personal CRM or just a digital business card?

    SnapCard is both a digital business card and a personal CRM. It begins with the frictionless exchange of contact details, then layers on notes, tags, reminders, and smart reconnect nudges so your network stays alive over time.

    If you want a tool that helps you go from “nice to meet you” to “we actually stayed in touch,” SnapCard is built for that journey.

    What if I still prefer paper business cards—can a personal CRM like SnapCard still help?

    Yes. A personal CRM like SnapCard doesn’t replace your paper cards; it makes them smarter. You can keep your existing habits at events and simply use SnapCard to capture who you met, where you met, and why they mattered, so you can follow up later without relying on memory or stacks of cards on your desk.



  • 10 Miles, 200 Business Cards, and One Big Idea: How SnapCard Was Born at ITB Berlin

    This March, I attended ITB Berlin, one of the world’s largest travel trade shows. Three days, 12 halls, over 10,000 exhibitors. It was electric — the kind of place where your next business deal, partnership, or career pivot could be hiding behind any handshake.

    By the end of Day 3, my phone’s battery was dead, my feet had clocked 10 miles, and my backpack was bursting at the seams.

    Not with swag.
    Not with brochures.
    But with paper business cards.

    Cards from travel tech founders, hoteliers from Southeast Asia, DMCs from Latin America, tour operators from Eastern Europe. I had a stack. All slightly different sizes. Most with no photo. Some with handwriting I couldn’t decode. A few with names I didn’t even remember meeting.

    I flew home from Berlin exhausted, optimistic — and frustrated.

    The Problem No One Talks About

    The real value of a trade show isn’t what you learn in a keynote or who you watch on a panel. It’s who you meet.

    But after 72 hours of rapid-fire networking and caffeine-fueled conversations, I found myself sitting at my desk the next Monday morning with a pile of paper cards… and no clear memory of who half of them were, where we met, or what we talked about.

    Some cards went in a drawer. Some went in the trash. A few, I forced myself to look up and follow up with — clumsily — on LinkedIn or email.

    And I kept thinking:

    Why is this still how we exchange contact information in 2025?

    What Should Have Happened

    Let’s rewind.

    Imagine I meet someone at ITB — let’s call her Anya, Head of Partnerships at a growing OTA in Poland.

    Instead of handing me a paper card, Anya shows me a QR code on her phone. I scan it. Instantly, I land on her SnapCard — a digital contact card with her photo, name, role, email, WhatsApp, and LinkedIn all in one place.

    I’m offered three choices:

    1. Add Anya to my SnapCard contacts (and get my own SnapCard in 30 seconds)
    2. Download her vCard directly into my phone
    3. Sign in to SnapCard web if I already have an account

    No app needed. No typing errors. No paper.

    If I already had SnapCard installed, I could tag Anya (“ITB contact”, “potential collab”, “follow up in April”), add a note (“spoke about affiliate integrations”), and even set a reminder to reconnect in 2 weeks. SnapCard would log the date, time, and GPS location of our meeting — so I could recall that we talked near Hall 5, by the Brazil booth, on Day 2 right after lunch.

    That’s how it should work.
    So we built it.

    From Problem to Product: SnapCard Was Born

    That post-ITB fatigue — and the realization that modern business networking was stuck in the analog era — sparked the creation of SnapCard.

    We wanted to solve the pain that every conference attendee, freelancer, founder, recruiter, and rainmaker knows too well:

    • The forgotten follow-ups
    • The lost context
    • The shoebox full of cards that never get digitized
    • The awkward “sorry, who are you again?” emails weeks later

    So we built a tool that made your first contact with someone feel like just the beginning — not a missed opportunity waiting to happen.

    SnapCard Today

    SnapCard is now used by professionals across industries to:

    • Instantly share a digital card with QR or link
    • Save new contacts with rich context: where, when, why you met
    • Add notes, tags, and reminders so your follow-up is thoughtful and timely
    • Keep your network organized without spreadsheets or clunky CRMs
    • Create multiple SnapCards for different roles or contexts (e.g., founder, advisor, investor)

    And if you’re at an event and meet someone else on SnapCard? You can mutually save each other with a tap — and never forget the moment.

    If You’re Going to Walk 10 Miles at a Trade Show…

    …make it count.

    Don’t come back with sore feet and a foggy memory. Come back with an organized, tagged, time-stamped pipeline of relationships that you can actually act on.

    That’s what SnapCard does.
    And that’s why we built it — at ITB Berlin, one paper card too many.

  • What Does a Pathways Peer Advisor Consult Look Like?

    Let’s look at what it looked like to Emma, a high school senior in Ohio, trying to figure out her college applications and needing advice tailored to her specific situation.

    “Talking to Someone Who’d Been Through It Changed Everything”

    By Emma S., Student from Columbus, Ohio

    I was the oldest in my family, so we didn’t really know what applying to college should look like. My school counselor was helpful but overloaded—hundreds of students per advisor. I needed more than general advice. I needed someone who had actually gotten into the types of schools I was aiming for—and who had come from a similar background.

    That’s when I tried Pathways.

    No commitments, no expensive packages—just one consultation at a time. You pay per consult, talk to someone who’s already done what you’re trying to do, and get direct answers.

    Step 1: Input What You Need—and Who You Want to Talk To

    The first step was straightforward. I picked the area where I wanted help—narrowing my college list and figuring out how to talk about my community service work in essays.

    Then I told Pathways what kind of advisor I wanted:

    • Schools they got into: ideally ones like Northwestern, Emory, or UVA
    • Where they’re currently enrolled
    • Cultural background (I was looking for someone who also grew up in a Midwestern suburb and had no family legacy advantage)
    • SAT score range (within 1350–1450, like me)
    • Career path: public health or psychology
    • Bonus: if they were first-gen or came from a public school background

    Step 2: Get Matched With Up to 10 Advisors

    Based on that, Pathways showed me 10 potential advisors who fit my criteria. Each profile came with:

    • Their current college and major
    • Where else they got in
    • Scores, APs, clubs, and outside-of-school stuff
    • Languages spoken (English was fine for me)
    • Hourly consult rate

    I ended up choosing Jalen, a sophomore at Emory who had also been accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill and Boston College. He went to a public high school and was super involved in community health work—just like me.

    Step 3: Select, Pay, and Schedule the Consult

    I booked a 30-minute session with Jalen. I bought credits (no subscription, just the session I needed), and within a day, Pathways confirmed a time that worked for both of us.

    Step 4: The Actual Consult

    We met over video and it was exactly what I needed.

    I asked him:

    • Why did you rank Emory above UNC?
    • How did you frame your community impact work?
    • What would you have done differently in your essays?
    • What “don’t miss” tips would you give for someone with a 3.8 GPA and a 1380 SAT?

    He didn’t give generic answers. He shared screenshots of his own essay outlines and explained how he structured his school-specific supplements. It was a conversation—not a lecture.

    Step 5: Rate, Favorite, and Keep Going

    After the call, I rated the session and gave feedback. Jalen’s insights were gold, so I marked him as a favorite.

    From there, I had options:

    • Buy a package of 3 more consults with Jalen (at a discount)
    • Use another single consult with him—maybe for essay reviews
    • Or try a different advisor for another area like financial aid or college interviews

    What It Meant for Me

    What started as one call became my go-to strategy. I talked to two more advisors after Jalen—one helped me refine my essay for Northeastern, another helped me prep for a WashU alumni interview.

    Pathways didn’t try to sell me a plan. It gave me agency. I picked who I wanted, asked exactly what I needed, and paid only for what I used.

    And when I got my first acceptance email, I sent Jalen a message: “You were right about how to close that essay.”

  • Discover the Secret to Business Success: Understanding Your Customers’ Feelings

    Did you know that understanding how your customers feel about your business is super important? Well, over 90% of businesses don’t really know what their customers think. But here’s the cool part: the businesses that do understand their customers tend to do really well. So, let’s learn how you can figure out what your customers are thinking and feeling!

    The Problem with Surveys

    You know those questionnaires businesses sometimes ask you to fill out? They might ask you how much you like their service or how likely you are to recommend them to others. Well, here’s the thing: those surveys often give answers that businesses want to hear, not what customers really think. It’s like trying to guess what your friends want to hear instead of telling the truth. That’s where the problem lies.

    VisitXP – your secret weapon!

    Imagine if there was a special tool that could help you understand your customers better. Well, guess what? There is! It’s called VisitXP, and it’s made just for small businesses like yours. Here’s how it works:

    Real-Time Feedback:

    VisitXP lets you hear from your customers right when they are at your business or interacting with your brand. This means you get to know what they think and feel right away. It’s like having a magic crystal ball that tells you what your customers are thinking and feeling. The nuanced feedback gathered from your customers by visitXP is then processed by our AI engines that turn this data in actionable items that you as the business owner can work on to align with what your customers are thinking and feeling.

    Matching Customer Expectations:

    Once you learn you get to work in aligning your business and its practices to customer expectations. You know how important it is to build trust with your customers, right? When expectations are met or exceeded, customers have a great experience! When your customers have a great experience at your business, they tell their friends about it. And when you listen to what your customers want and give it to them, they trust you even more. Trust is like having a superpower that makes your business grow!

    Making Your Business Awesome:

    Running a small business can be tough, but VisitXP makes it easier. By listening to your customers, learning from their feedback, and making ongoing changes based on what they say, you can make your business even better. It’s like having a secret weapon that helps you make smart decisions and keep your customers happy.

    Understanding your customers is the key to making your small business awesome! Traditional surveys might not give you the whole truth, but with user experience tools from connectchief, you can get real-time feedback and make your customers happy. When you listen to your customers and meet their expectations, your business will grow and become super successful. Take our user experience tools for a try and effortlessly make your small business the best it can be!

    We found this paper from Harvard Business Review to be strongly reflective of our methodology with visitXP. Our approach has many similarities to what the researchers suggest. Read more about their thoughts at Using AI to Track How Customers Feel — In Real Time