“You didn’t have to go to IIT to sell t-shirts,” was a common refrain Patna lad Harsh Snehanshu heard from both his professors and parents.

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His batchmate, and now business partner, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, Apoorv Jain seldom got more encouraging words.

“We were very demotivated and thought it wouldn’t work but the day after we decided not to continue with it, our idea was selected for the business plan competition at IIM (Indian Institute of Management), Ahmedabad,” recalls Jain.

That was a watershed moment for their entrepreneurial dreams. Snehanshu and Jain founded Witcraft Marketing last September while being final-year students, the former of engineering physics and the latter of civil engineering, at IIT-D.  Witcraft runs www.thewittyshit.com on which you can post what you think are your best one-liners. If they are funny or profound or demand to be noticed for any other reason, you may soon spot a guy in a mall sporting them on his t-shirt or you could sip coffee from a cup emblazoned with those words at your neighbour’s house. And that’s not at all: you’ll get royalty for the same.

“Even if you are mildly creative you can get recognition and monetary incentives. This is much like social networking, we call it creative networking,” explains Snehanshu.

The duo would never have chanced upon this idea had it not been for the explosion of Facebook, Twitter, Gmail chat and the works, where users are itching to have their status messages or posts commented on.

“Designing a t-shirt will take maybe a couple of hours but you can come up a one-liner in five minutes. That’s our USP,” notes Senhanshu.

Here are a couple of contributions to the portal:

“IIT-D: Bringing smiles to your family and wrinkles to your forehead since 1960.”

“Yes, you can read. Now get lost.” 

There are predecessors to Witcraft such as Tantra and Inkfruit, both of which inspired the start-up and are known for the catchy phrases and quirky designs on their tees but Snehanshu draws attention to Witcraft’s differentiating strategy of making contributors stakeholders of the merchandise sold. He and Jain are the only full-time employees at Witcraft but are aided by about over 50 students from IIT-D, National Institute of Fashion Technology in Delhi and Hyderabad and other institutes and even a couple of professionals.

“We can’t pay them much so we throw a party every fortnight to keep them going,” chuckles Snehanshu.

Jain is content to be are working out of the apartment they share. They are yet to recover the Rs2 lakh they borrowed from their parents. They are presently in talks with a couple of angel investors to raise funds.

“Once we have some money, we can go beyond one-liners and look at designs and even photographs and have more merchandise like greeting cards and posters,” believes Snehanshu.

Advertising on thewittyshit.com will be key for Witcraft in the coming days, he adds. Witcraft is also looking to associate with companies by offering to run competitions on the website for taglines for their brands.

Do the founders think the name ‘thewittyshit’ will kick up a fuss? “We have consulted a lawyer and our investors. There seems to be no issue. Besides, it’s unforgettable,” Snehanshu notes, hoping to capitalise on cheeky transgression a la the iconic FCUK (French Connection UK).