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Hey Everyone,

I have a few businesses, one a tech startup and another is a website & marketing agency. Both are on the up and up, and I want to add some flash to my direct marketing game. With the world opening up here soonish (hopefully!), I want to make an impression on the people I meet in person. One way I want to do this is to make all my business cards interactive AR business cards. I have tried a few services, such as https://www.onirix.com/. Looked like it would be a great fit, but the cost is just way too much. I get it that AR is new, cool, and flashy, but I just need something to make my business cards a tad bit cooler… I don’t want to have to pay $100/month for something just to make clients remember me a bit more. Business cards aren’t usually given out like candy so there’s not a huge, measurable ROI. Need a more realistic solution…

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I’m wondering if anyone can point me in the right direction on some open source projects that I might be able to build off of to build a simple platform for making AR business cards for myself? Or if anyone has any pointers to put me in the right direction so I might be able to build something to fit my needs.

Requirements:

1. NEEDS to be a web-based solution, no app downloads. (Need to eliminate that access barrier… Hosting the app on my server would be ideal)

2. Accessible via QR code (Back of business card)

3. Selectable „Buttons“ – If you want to download my vCard or See a short video about a service I offer. (A ‚Nice to Have‘ off the jump, not necessary)

4. Needs to be affordable (Hosting this on my own server would be ideal, but Im open to suggestions)

I have zero experience in the AR space up to now. I’ve always kept my eye on it as the possibilities of this tech fascinate me, but my attention has been focused elsewhere).

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If anyone can offer any help or knows where I could look for resources, let me know… Just a little side project I’m looking into…

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Alternatively… I would be open to starting a project group to build out a platform to service this area. I’d be a great tester, and have the experience to scale it out if it looks marketable. If we can build something that works, we could turn it into a small startup focused on a fast exit (Selling to vista print would be neat, eh?). I think there is a market for it, or at least the market and interest can be grown through some creative marketing (Simple demos, make people think „That’s neat“). If we can get a working product built, we could easily monetize it. I’m thinking one free card (For 1 year? 6Months?), $5+/month for every other card after. We could also make money by providing the UI design and dev, white-labeling services for agencies, and maybe cheap printing services (Once the process is locked down, lots can be outsourced). With the right pricing structure (one that targets small, medium businesses), we could capture a small niche market in the AR space early on. The AR companies I’ve seen seem to have their fingers in many things, so it might be an interesting way to get into the middle of it with a focused product niche. I have zero experience in the AR space at the moment, hence why I am here. But I have lots of 3D modeling experience, for what it’s worth. I’m a quick learner though, so I’ll catch on quickly with everything as it proceeds. My contribution to this project would be my startup business experience, general app dev, IT expertise, creative problem solving, project management, and marketing know-how. As I have some other priorities, I can’t (and wouldn’t want to) micromanage a project like this. Ideal project partners would be organized, problem-solving, communicative self-starters that are confident in software development, and are either learning AR dev or have experience in the space already. Don’t need to be a pro or anything. (Don’t be shy if this is an area you are just getting started in. Could be something neat to add to your portfolio). I’m not sure what the difficulty is on this, but I’m sure we can bootstrap something together through some open-sourced projects and whatnot. (Who knows, might be over my head here)

If anyone is interested, shoot me a message and we can brainstorm some ideas in a call together. If there are a bunch of people interested, I’ll start a discord or something. I think this could be a great project for anyone looking to get into the AR space, and maybe even make a few bucks for beer and pizza.

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Thanks!!