It has happened to everyone. A rough nudge by a passer-by or an unexpected hole in your pocket, and next thing you know, you are watching your precious $700 device fall face-down onto the asphalt.

“Oh, shit!” you say. Then, apprehensively, you pick your phone off of the ground, and to your dismay, the screen is shattered. But no worries, Oh Shit Repairs is ready and willing to fix it.

“While not only the location and the distance of the nearest Apple repair shop is very far from campus, it’s also incredibly expensive,” sophomore Joshua Shawver-Weiner, one of two founders of Oh Shit Repairs, said. “We just saw it as an opportunity to try and help the people on campus to get an affordable repair.”

Shawver-Weiner and his co-founder sophomore Philip Brossy created Oh Shit Repairs in April 2018 and officially started the company in May. Though they began with no advertising or marketing, the business grew quickly, and soon enough, they started hiring other students as well.

“Me and Phil met each other by being roommates last year, and we kinda instantly knew that we had this entrepreneurial bug,” Shawver-Weiner said.

Rather than take the 15 minute Uber ride to the nearest Apple store, students can go to ohshitrepairs.com, schedule to drop off the broken device at their desired location and the phone will be taken to another off-campus location for repair. The repair is guaranteed to be complete in under 60 minutes. If the screen breaks for any reason after its repair, the duo will replace it free of charge.

The business also has a cellular device program which allows customers to sell old, broken iPhones. According to Brossy, this gives them the opportunity to not only grow their business, but help fellow Tulane students earn money as well.

The most rewarding part of the business, Shawver-Weiner says, is interacting with the Tulane community.

“The thing that makes me most excited about this is watching me and my buddy grow this idea and have it actually work,” Shawver-Weiner said. “But more importantly, to see the different range of students … just like those 15 minute conversations when we’re picking up and dropping off your phone and realizing that there are a lot of people here and they have phones that need to be fixed.”

Upon growing the business, the two founders received support from professors and teaching assistants, who helped them create websites, design processes and give advice. According to Shawver-Weiner and Brossy, this outpouring of aid gives them inspiration to help other student entrepreneurs.

“Phil and I, we started with nothing but Google and a lot of time to research it,” Shawver-Weiner said. “And if you need help or you’re interested in starting a business and have questions, we’d be more than happy to help you out.”

Looking to the future, Brossy says they hope to continue to expand the business to other universities.

“We’ve definitely made a presence on Tulane’s campus, we think,” Brossy said. “We want to continue to expand that and serve the community here, and also grow a bigger presence at Loyola, and then one day we’ll hopefully move on to other colleges as well.”

For other hopeful student entrepreneurs thinking about starting a business, Brossy says college is the best time to start.

“If you have an idea, you get out there and you try it,” Brossy said. “College is the time to experiment, try, learn — it’s one of the best times in life to learn. … This is the time in life where you should experiment the most — whether it’s a social venture or community service or a business.”

To learn more about the company, its services and rates, visit ohshitrepairs.com.