This week, we had the opportunity for an interview with Emmanuel Uduebholo, the CEO of Meeula, a top-notch lead-generating, social, and professional smart digital business card for top professionals.
In the interview below, we talked with Emmanuel about Meeula’s unique products and the startup’s plans for the future. Enjoy!
Let’s start off with you telling us about Meeula. How did the idea of the startup come about?
Thank you. Meeula is a smart business card. Not just smart. It’s a lead-generating business card that has dual functions. It can be used to share contact information such as social media links, phone numbers, payment links, email addresses to clients and business individuals as well as in receiving contact information leads from clients, individuals, and high profile clients which go straight to your dashboard all in seconds.
It’s a product that’s here to enhance physical networking and help people build real and lasting connections that can result in high transactional outputs. You may have thousands of followers online but there may really be no one-on-one connection.
It actually started when I was trying to market mentorships.ng at conferences to get more experienced veterans as mentors on the platform one-on-one and also connect with high-ticket clients and close sales for a personal side hustle. The idea of a paper business card was not really effective in all of that. As a tech person with digital marketing skills, I’ve always known how to build email lists and nurture a community which the regular paper card doesn’t provide in this digital era.
You know, you give out dozens of paper cards that end up getting forgotten in pockets and on desks and sometimes, get swept off. This was my personal experience as I wasn’t contacted by those I gave. So I asked some professionals on mentorships.ng about the idea of a smart lead generating business card that could perform this dual function and they subscribed to the whole concept. By just tapping your card on smartphones, it launches your digital profile and your clients get to follow all your social links, save your number to their phone and also connect with you with the emails which get to your dashboard email list for follow-up. This time, your contact is already saved with them and you have theirs as well.
This is something the traditional paper card was trying to achieve but could not, without technology.
What unique problems are you trying to solve?
There are tons of opportunities and money we lose daily to the lack of skillful physical networking. So, Meeula helps to recover these losses. Also, it helps coaches, consultants, growth and partnership executives, brand managers, CEOs, and corporate professionals to build real connections, physically. The leads you amass with Meeula are leads that come from physical networking. It is unlike when you follow someone online who does not know you.
Professionals who have been seeking to build a real network of clients in their email lists can have it done effortlessly and automatically by just bringing their cards near their clients’ smartphones.
What the traditional business card tried to achieve is what Meeula has done. You ultimately want clients to contact you, have your contact saved, and have their contacts at the same time. This will help you to close sales easily and directly when following up instead of passing through the gatekeepers all over again. And lastly, people appreciate it because of the confidence, smartness, speed, outlook, and the lasting impression it brings.
Who are your main competitors and how is Meeula different from them?
As it stands in the business card industry in Nigeria, the closest is the QRcode. Not everyone may have time scanning codes. But the technology employed by Meeula isn’t the QRcode. As an Information and Communication Engineering graduate from Covenant University, it’s a different mechanism entirely.
The speed cannot be matched. The elegance, lasting impression and the confidence, also.
Also, the primary differentiator in terms of function is the lead generating potential. You share your contacts and receive email leads to your dashboard right there, which you can later export to your sales funnel.
The traditional cards haven’t been able to achieve this.
Also, HRs can order Meeula cards for their employees and have access to admin functions like ‘activate’ and ‘deactivate’ employees card, access all the email leads from employees for the company, and also access analytic functions.
That’s why Meeula isn’t the regular business card; it goes as far as solving problems faced by professionals in this digital era.
What has been the most satisfying moment since Meeula was founded?
Idea validation is something I don’t miss out on. I learned this from the Group CEO of Pertinence Group, Dr. Stephen Oluwatobi and the CEO of RealVest, Mr. Damilare Oshokoya. So, getting validations and an increased community of loyal waiting customers who couldn’t wait for the launch was one of them. Partnership opportunities came easily to serve as distribution channels and we received lots of kudos from companies we informed ahead of time.
What does success look like to your company?
Success here at Meeula is measured by the experience users can have with our product. We care about them.
The number of registered users, registered companies, and employees with increasing number of orders are key indicators as well.
Looking at the future of Meeula, what are you most excited about?
I’m really excited about the product which has come to stay. We see Meeula card becoming one with people. It’s a disruptive innovation. No one will be travelling with bulky pieces of paper cards any longer. Everyone will have a single card just like the way everyone has a single ATM card for different transactions.
The future of digital marketing, lead generation, and email list building is fast growing–from physical contact to closing of sales.
It’s not only for social links and contacts, anyone can simply pay for your product on the spot via website and payment links on the profile as well. You only have to bring your card near your clients’ device and they get to follow and pay by clicking on your payment link.
It’s a platform to be leveraged on.
What are the company’s five-year projections?
More distribution channels by more partnerships, UserBase leverage of complementary companies, more companies and their employees, increased orders, and sales.
Also, we will be rolling out more and more innovative features to make the whole experience worthwhile for users.
