Hello from Namibia. Rethinking Postocard Postcards

When I was a schoolboy, in middle classes we all collected stamps. Albums with stamps were brought to school, exchanged with them, and even sold to each other, gaining their first experience of commodity-money relations. And although stamps were simply collected by all the polls, in each class, from the parallel, there was its “white crow”, which chose an alternative microworld as an escape from the Soviet school reality - “badges”, coin collectors, and “post-readers”. The mainstream did not understand them, but in principle tolerated them and even loved them. Still, having a rare hobby in the midst of newly minted philatelists, these collectors subtly felt the market and, as a rule, kept a few good brands for each album as an exchange currency.



In our class there was a boy who collected postcards. His passion began with the fact that the older brother was a circus acrobat, due to the intense tour schedule during the chess ’in cities and villages of the Motherland, as well as to the friendly countries of the socialist camp, he did not write letters to his relatives, but from everywhere he found the post office, he considered It is your duty to send a postcard depicting a local landmark and a couple of duty lines. The parents were proud of their son’s career, and the younger brother tracked the geography of his movements, building the resulting postcards by country in his album.
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Then the Internet came into our lives, bringing with it a mass of simpler and more accessible ways of communication and pushing mail to the curb of progress. But now, when we already have all this, delivery of tangible, physical objects is again becoming popular among connoisseurs with whom energetics (or, for example, the smell of the addressee's perfume) will not replace any ZIP file with a huge amount of photos or even a Skype conversation.

The market responds quickly to trends, for every new demand your offer is immediately located. Postcrossing.som, which is very popular today, was created for those who are interested in philocarticism, and for those who prefer any virtual signs of attention, it is not surprising, but the material evidence of friendship or love is the generators of postcards, where you created an original copy on the website with a couple of clicks order its print on demand and send it by mail.

However, if in the West the competition among such services is high enough and does not allow to relax, Russia is still far behind in the quality of services provided, which creates prerequisites for the appearance of new players on the market. Rather, the actual online designers and generators of postcards in RuNet are plentiful, not enough services, where you could print a regular cardboard postcard and the usual Russian Post would usually send it.

Although the Postocard project, which offers investors a 10% stake in our crowdfunding platform in exchange for investments, was the one that created this service. Moreover, the sowing stage at Postocard is far behind. Its authors managed to do not just MVP, but a full-fledged working service, which already now, at the very beginning of its journey, offers consumers high-quality products. Agree, just a few succeed at once. Many startups are familiar with the situation when the resulting primary product is very far from rosy expectations. Postocard, on the other hand, successfully and actively attracts clientele in social networks and on couponers, and already has good user reviews.



Reviews reviews, but until you do not touch it with your own hands, you will not believe. Of course, I personally tested everything and yes, I confirm, indeed, everything works quickly and efficiently, the level of not even a startup, I would say.

Registration through the social network is, as expected, which eliminates the frustration that adversely affects the mood. Next, we fill in our photo (choose from a ready-made template, or find a suitable meme on the Web), print the text on the picture, then a few lines on the back side, the address (how great it’s that the postal code is put here automatically - you don’t always remember it by heart ), put a daw in the field "Envelope", if you need it, pay through the "Robokassa", which provides many ways and - oops, ready - the card is already on its way to the addressee. Surely, someone will be able to and faster, but it took me two and a half minutes on all-about everything. Usually I dig with such things much longer.

In short, the service of a biased quality test passed with dignity, the only thing that, in my opinion, is acutely lacking is mobile apps for iOS and Android. And how great it would be - I made a topical selfie (“That's my pool at the hotel” or “I ride a camel”) - I immediately made a card for my family and friends.

But this is just the second question. It is on the creation of applications, mainly Postocard investment and attracts. What, of course, is necessary - a service of this kind would be especially good mobility.

Everything else in Postocard seems to be in stock. Groups in social networks were created and promoted, an agreement was signed with Russian Post, a partnership was established with a printing company (printing postcards on a modern Indigo machine for $ 500,000, by the way), business processes are developed, advertising is running, all tablets are uploaded, stamps are also glued.

Of course, in the future program and the conquest of the world, as without it - after the finalization of the product and its withdrawal to the domestic market, localization will follow for the most promising foreign mass market.

In general, everything is somehow very wonderful, but a couple of questions still suggest themselves. And no one will answer me better than the one who has the most direct relation to the creation of a service, namely Postocard co-founder Dmitry Komratov:

-Dmitry, your project is very pleasant, the service personally seemed to me very useful. But here they take me to doubt whether he will find a mass user? Who is your target audience?

- I am sure that he will. Postocard was conceived rather as a community of people for whom the physical expression of emotions, for example, in the form of a postcard, is more important than posts, likes, tweets and other e-nonsense, which today has replaced most of the communication. At the moment, there are two target groups - young parents and independent travelers. Young parents are mainly married, educated women under the age of 30, who are mainly engaged in child care, with the result that there is almost no time left for relatives and friends. But grandparents also need to participate in education. We will provide this link to them. Parents can give a lot of positive emotions to their loved ones by sending them postcards with photos of the child, signing them. Another type is a traveler (photographer, blogger, businessman, freelancer), who is constantly far from family and friends, all the time traveling. He will be able to send greetings from wandering with his own photos through his family.

- Who are your competitors?

-In Russia, there are 3 similar services. We took advantage of everything. Only 1 of 3 gives at least some quality postcard. No service does not lead at least some sane marketing campaign. No service works with customers. We have it all. No service has a mobile application - we will have it in the near future and will focus on it.

- Thank you, Dmitry, good luck to your project, I am sure that it will find support among our users.

You can buy a share in the Postocard service on our VCStart collective investment platform .