IITians launch site to market wisecracks

IIT- D wizkids launch an online portal where one can post witty one-liners and earn royalty for the same. 

Shit happens. Ever wondered who actually came up with this phrase that is so often used to explain life’s anomalies? “ No one does. And there is no way of finding out,” said Harsh Snehanshu ( 22), who along with his friend at the Indian Institute of Technology ( IIT) in Delhi, decided to ensure that the contributors of such wisecracks do not go unrecognised.

This brainwave, which Snehanshu, a student of engineering physics, and his batch mate Apoorv Jain ( 23) of civil engineering had as final year students of IIT, Delhi, eventually translated into thewittyshit. com. It’s an online portal where anyone can post their witty one- liners and earn royalty for the same. Well, that only if it finds its way on a t- shirt or such merchandise.

“Nowadays, you don’t have to be a Shakespeare to get quoted. There is a wealth of original wisecracks and one- liners floating around and going viral on social networking sites. This presented itself as a brilliant entrepreneurial opportunity,” added Snehanshu, who has authored two books and is working on completing the trilogy.

Confident that this could be the next big thing, the duo decided to skip campus placement and continue working on thewittyshit. Com.

Constant persuasion — and, the film The Social Network, to some extent — helped get their parents onboard. They invested ` 2- 3 lakh to get the venture started.

It has been almost four months since they graduated from IIT.

Operating from a room in their two- bedroom rented apartment in Malviya Nagar, Snehanshu and Jain, with the help of 60- odd students of IIT, NIFT and other colleges, hired mainly on “ promises”, have managed to create a database of about 3,000 witty one- liners contributed by their registered users. TheWittyShit page on Facebook has about 20,000 members.

“Our top 10 one- liners have sold over 300 t- shirts and the contributors have earned royalty on the basis of each t- shirt sold,” said Jain.

They may have a list of top 10 one- liners, but the wisecrack that is priceless and still brings a smile to their faces is the one that goes “ IIT Delhi: Bringing smiles to your family and wrinkles to your forehead since 1960.” “That was a quite a hit on campus during our time at IIT,” Snehanshu said laughing.

The duo is currently looking at moving beyond merchandising and taking their wealth of catch phrases to corporations. “We now want to present the bank to companies who can use some of the one- liners as the punchline for their products and services. The contributors of course will again earn royalty if their line is used,” said Jain.