Got your own catchphrase? Now you can claim it, share it and sell it, with the help of a new Chicago-based business, CoinThatPhrase.com. Created by entrepreneur Noel Burkman, CoinThatPhrase combines original quotes from users with classic phrases from movies and pop culture. For a small fee, users can add their own witticisms to the site’s database. “It’s really about exploring content ownership,” Burkman says. “A database people can come to and monetize it.” Members can then purchase print products and merchandise—such as t-shirts, coffee mugs and dog tags—with phrases on them, and whoever coined the phrase gets a share of the profit. Users can rate quotes and participate in contests, too. The site, which officially launched mid-July, has been in the works for a while. Burkman says he first got the idea when watching “Band of Brothers” on HBO and wondering where the phrase “band of brothers” originated. “I realized there was no database of phrases and words,” he says. “People should really be able to put their own stuff out there.” This was before social networking really took off, he says, so he “wrote up a business plan and sat on it.” Now almost a month old, CoinThatPhrase is approaching 300 members and has more than 8,000 phrases. Burkman hopes to continue building the database and add images, designs and pictures. “We really see it expanding into a number of verticals.”
Chicago Arts & Culture
