One year ago, The Hullabaloo interviewed then-sophomores Josh Shawver-Weiner and Philip Brossy, co-founders of Oh Shoot Repairs. Since then, Oh Shoot has expanded from just dealing with phone repairs, but their values and devotion have remained constant. 

Oh Shoot now offers cleaning and tutoring services in addition to repairing broken phones. They have created a new website to streamline and simplify the booking process. The business has also developed a new marketing team and brand representative program, boasting 41 contractors that earn more than double minimum wage and about 70 brand reps across the country at different universities who work on commission. 

Shawver-Weiner and Brossy’s biggest goals have been creating part-time jobs for college students and creating a single platform that offers multiple services that could ease college life, allowing students to book appointments within an hour before booking a cleaning, tutoring or phone repair appointment. 

Currently, there are 23 tutors and six cleaners on Tulane’s campus, and across eight colleges there are about 14 people ready to repair your broken phones. These other schools, also with brand reps, include the University of Michigan, the University of Southern California, Wake Forest University, Gettysburg College, High Point University and, locally, Xavier University of Louisiana and Loyola University New Orleans. 

The new brand rep program that Oh Shoot began implementing over the summer was intended to allow students to “create a really true part-time job” for students, where they don’t have to feel super committed but can still make money by posting to their story and advertising for Oh Shoot via word of mouth. Each brand rep also has their own discount code for 10% off. Right now, Oh Shoot is running a competition for their brand reps in which the highest-earning brand rep will earn an all-expense paid trip to Costa Rica with a house on the beach along with six friends.

“I think that kinda speaks to the changes we’re trying to make — we’re trying to enable college students to earn money really passively, and on the other end, allow college students to free up their time by having quality services that offer that,” Shawver-Weiner said of the competition.

The business has also recently partnered with local nonprofit Plant the Peace. Every time someone uses any of Oh Shoot’s services, one tree is planted in Sub-Saharan Africa. The two organizations recently partnered for a charity event this past week, attracting more than 950 people and raising nearly $4,000.

The Oh Shoot founders expressed gratitude to the Tulane and New Orleans community in supporting their large endeavor, considering how far they have come. Tulane professors and alumni have helped the company navigate the ins and outs of the business world.

“The local New Orleans entrepreneur community as well has been really supportive with giving information out. It’s a really nice close knit community,” Shawver-Weiner said. “Whether it’s like emotional support with trials and tribulations of starting a business or more constructive stuff …  I mean, when we first started, we met with a graduate school professor who literally did our taxes and helped us write some of the clauses in our contracts.” 

Shawver-Weiner also cited John Clarke, Oh Shoot’s official advisor and associate dean for Graduate Programs and Executive Education at Tulane, and another graduate school professor who provided useful advice like telling the two founders to start acting like the business owners that they wanted to be in five years. 

“He really helped frame our mindset,” Shawver-Weiner said.

While the tutoring and cleaning services are currently only available to Tulane students, Brossy and Shawver-Weiner are working on expanding by second semester to more schools, emphasizing the potential of their scalable platform and their excitement for the future.

Even though Oh Shoot started as a couple students’ side hustle fixing phones out of their freshman dorms, Brossy and Shawver-Weiner have come a long way in providing 30 part-time jobs to their campus community.

“One thing that hasn’t changed and what we said in the first interview is if there’s any entrepreneurs on campus or locally in New Orleans who want questions, need advice, are concerned about something, you can always reach out to Phillip and I,” Shawver-Weiner said. “We basically live in the business school. You can come find us — room 320. We’re here all day, every day, if you just want to ask us a question about starting your own business or anything, we’re always here to help because we wouldn’t be able to do this without the support of the Tulane and New Orleans community, so we want to give that back as well.”

 The founders have surely not forgotten their humble beginnings.

Oh Shoot is currently running a promotion for all Tulane students with the code BIGEASY for 20% off of all services for four weeks.