The short version
HQ is a software design, development, and AI agency in Ogden, Utah, founded in 2012. Octagon, MINI USA’s agency partner, asked us for a way for owners at MINI Takes the States 2026 to introduce their cars, and for anyone walking the lot to learn about the car in front of them. We designed and built Meet My MINI, a mobile-first web app where every car gets a profile page. Owners put a QR cling in the window, and a scan opens the car’s profile. It went live about eight weeks after kickoff, two weeks before the first stop.
The problem
MINI owners love showing off what they’ve built, and at a rally there are hundreds of cars parked side by side. Planning for each stop assumed 700 to 1,200 cars. Octagon and MINI wanted owners to be able to give their car a proper introduction.
It had to work on a phone, in a parking lot, for a crowd that knows a lot about cars and doesn’t necessarily care about software. And it had to be live before the first stop, with the window clings already headed to print.
What we built
Every car gets its own page: its name, best angles, upgrades, rally history, home base and road-trip playlist. Anyone who scans the cling in the window meets the car.
The whole experience is written in the car’s own voice. Sign-up is five short steps with headings like “'Ello, my name is,” “Get a load of me” and “What they’ve done to me.”
That voice came late, honestly. Our early screens were tidy and correct, and the client told us they looked too much like business software, with jokes that weren’t landing. So we leaned into MINI’s playful, British side and let the car’s photo lead each step.
Claimable window clings
Each printed cling has its own code. Owners scan it to link it to their profile, and if a cling gets lost or damaged, they can move the profile to a new one. Every profile also gets its own QR code, ready to download for print.
No passwords
Sign-in is an emailed magic link. Nobody wants to reset a password in a parking lot.
Owners choose who finds them
A profile can show up in browsing, or only for people who scan the car.
Rally history
Owners add the MINI Takes the States years they’ve driven, and the official badge for each year shows on their profile.
How we built it
We designed most of it directly in code, working from a clickable prototype instead of static mockups. That let the client try real interactions on their own phones early on.
- A Next.js web app with a mobile-first design system built on MINI’s typefaces and colors
- PostgreSQL on AWS, with photos stored on S3 and served through CloudFront
- Magic-link sign-in emails sent through Amazon SES
- QR codes generated in batches of around 1,000, with admin tools to void, reassign and track them
- Automatic language filtering on everything owners type
- An admin dashboard for events, codes and profiles
We also wrote an AWS setup guide so the client’s team could set up the infrastructure in their own account. They got through it with almost no follow-up questions.
The view counter
On the evening of September 30, the client had an idea. The MINI crowd loves awards, so why not crown the car with the most profile views? Using our AI-assisted development process, we built, tested and shipped a view counter and an admin dashboard for it, and it was live on the first day of the first stop.
It counts each person once per car, and it flags views that come from a small number of networks so the judges can spot anyone trying to game it.
Patrick Robins at Octagon got off the road after the first stop and sent us this:
“Event was great - huge success.”
The first stop, in California, ran October 2 to 4. Florida and New York are next.
