For CliqBit co-founders, Olivia Joslin and Hannah Wei, the idea emerged from an embarrassing, but also humorous, accident.
“Hannah and I were on our icy campus in the middle of last winter and she slipped and fell down in front of the only cute guy on our women’s college campus … I was trying to open my Snapchat to get a photo, but the app crashed and the moment was lost,” Joslin said.
CliqBit, a humor-based social media app created by two Wellesley College students, launched Tuesday. The app redesigns social media by creating a platform that encourages users to share more personable content while engaging with friends, family members and other CliqBit users.
“We knew that a couple lines of text sent out to our friends would make them laugh … We analyzed every [social media] network and realized there’s not a perfect platform for our funny moments,” Joslin explained.
That’s where CliqBit comes in.
While CliqBit is a social media platform, “CliqBit revolutionizes the way content is shared,” said Jessica Lee, CliqBit social media intern and Wellesley sophomore.
CliqBit differentiates itself from other popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat because it combines each platform’s unique aspects and provides users with the ease and accessibility to post in whatever way they feel best expresses that humorous moment.
One of CliqBit’s most prominent features is that it “bridges the gap that you have to be permanent or you have to be temporary,” Wei said. The user has the ability to make their posts permanent posts or “disappearing posts.”
In addition to the disappearing posts, CliqBit transforms the “like” system from being a competition to being hidden from everyone except for the user. Only users have the accessibility to see the amount of likes on each of their posts so, “[you’re] only comparing with yourself,” said Wei.
Although CliqBit plans to change social media, what’s more impressive is the team itself. Both Joslin and Wei are sophomores at Wellesley College, and the majority of the group also includes college students from all over the Greater Boston area. As most students struggle to balance schoolwork, a social life and a part-time job, Joslin and Wei took the challenge above and beyond and added their own company to the mix.
Joslin said creating, establishing and managing a startup while being a student is incredibly challenging, but both Joslin and Wei find it extremely rewarding.
“Being a student is really valuable when starting up a company because we realized that people are more willing to help you as a student,” Wei said.
As students understand their skills and passions, they may also realize they don’t have to be involved in tech or have a programming background in order to be involved with a startup.
“There are so many ways to be involved in tech, and it’s not just sitting down and coding,” Joslin said. “There’s also product management and the marketing side of tech. You can bring something to the table to a tech startup.”
Even though humor is the basis of CliqBit, both Joslin and Wei are passionate about diverging away from what social media has become. With prominent social media stars like Essena O’Neill explaining the harm of social media and users becoming obsessed with the number of likes and followers they have, the fun aspect of social media is working against the competitive aspect.
Both Joslin and Wei want CliqBit to help users go back to enjoying social media and share for the sake of making someone smile or laugh, not for promotions and popularity.
“Our vision for the company is that CliqBit will reshape social media,” Wei said. “It will tell people to become more comfortable posting their more candid moments.”
