Meeting of Founders and the Beginnings of an Idea

My name is Jakub, and together with my classmate Adam, my partner, long-time friend, and now like a brother, we decided to change the way businesses and customers interact with loyalty programs. As students in Germany, we realized that the current ways loyalty programs are used are either very outdated (ahem, paper cards) or complicated (installing an app). So we wondered if there could be a simpler solution to streamline the way loyalty is applied in the world.

Frustration with Paper Cards

I remember when we were having coffee together, and I was just paying with my phone while there was a pile of paper loyalty cards next to the terminal. At that moment, I said to myself, "How cool would it be if I could add that physical card straight to my Apple Wallet just like a credit card" (I don’t want to spoil anything for you, but it can be done). Since I'm the type who doesn’t like to carry a lot of stuff – my wallet contains only my ID, driver’s license, and maybe a health insurance card, and that’s totally fine with me. Paper cards represent an impractical and inefficient way to collect rewards. 😅

Proposed Solution: VEXiON cards

This frustration led us to develop a digital loyalty program – VEXiON cards. Why the name VEXiON cards? That’s for another day and another article ;) Our vision was to create something that would simplify loyalty programs for both businesses and customers. So we started looking for solutions to this idea. Like everyone, we went to Google and searched for "how to add loyalty cards to Apple Wallet", "how to convert stamp paper card into digital one in Apple Wallet" and it didn't take long before we found a solution. After all, concert tickets have been added to Wallet like this for a long time, so why shouldn’t it work for loyalty cards? We discovered "Loyalty Passes - Wallet". That’s exactly what we needed. Nothing new or groundbreaking, but just what could solve our problem. 📱✨

Why We Did It for Ourselves

You know what’s the best part? We started this wanting to do it primarily for ourselves 😅! After presenting the idea to a few people around us, we quickly realized that others had similar problems and liked this solution. After all, who wants to carry all those paper cards? No one… And thus began our now 8-month journey of development, designing, brainstorming, making mistakes, fixing them, and much more until we got here on November 25, 2024, when we had the final steps before launch. We launched the system at the first locations where our system is being tested, customers are signing up, rewards are being redeemed, stamps are being collected, all to be able to launch the system in its full strength soon.

Our Vision and the Future of VEXiON Cards

Our goal is not only to modernize loyalty programs and bring them into the digital age but also to reduce paper waste from those millions of paper cards that are used worldwide. We want businesses to easily manage their loyalty programs, and for customers to have a simple and convenient way to collect rewards. We believe that with VEXiON cards we can enhance the customer experience while also contributing to a more eco-friendly world.