Be the creator of your own brand with Butta.us and get 50% of the profits

A place where the user is given full access to design his/her creation, Butta.us is one of the best online solutions for any of anyone’s printing needs. The website lets you create your prints and allows you earn some money in the process. There is also a wide range of pre-designed tees available from where you can choose your favorite design.

Techlekh interviewed a representative of Butta.us, Sabin Bhandari. This is what he had to say:

Q: What inspired your team create this website? Why the name “Butta.us”? Could you tell me something about the site?

A: There are a couple of reasons and events that led to this:

First, seeing how we had to face a lot of struggle to bring out our custom-designed products in the market when we first started Threadpaints, we saw an opportunity and a gap between the creators/designers and the market.

Second, we got a lot of queries from people regarding how they could start something of a brand or how they’ve always wanted their designs printed on some products.

Then, we tested out this hypothesis when we opened Threadpaint’s In-house Products to freelance designers. Much to our expectations and relief, the model seemed viable.

All these reasons and a few more led us to start Butta as a separate entity.

Why Butta.us

Honestly, we were running out of options on domains. Butta.com was on sale for $4500 which we just couldn’t afford. Other traditional domains were taken.

Then luckily, one beautiful afternoon we stumbled across Butta.us and it matched with our overall brand theme. We could promote the domain along “Butta Is Us”. It fit perfectly with our marketing plans too.

Buttas’ concept, which goes by “50% of the profit goes to the designer” seems simple enough.

Regarding the website

Butta.us website was developed with an idea of making the overall user experience as simple as possible.

Buttas’ concept, which goes by “50% of the profit goes to the designer” seems simple enough. However for that simplicity, there are a lot of complex use-cases we have to manage so that the overall user experience from simple browsing, design uploading to ordering a product is straightforward and intuitive.

We’re still working alongside our users’ feedback to improve and in a good amount of cases fix them, and this process will go on.

In summary, we had two things in mind when we started it: It should be simple and fast. If any particulars element had no use, then don’t keep it.

Q: What services do you give to your customers? (Are the shirts only available in cotton or are there any other materials?)

A: Any-level e-commerce Company in Nepal should be giving services like Free Delivery all over Nepal, Product Quality Assurance, Return or Refund Guarantees alongside many other traditional customer services to their clients. This is a no-brainer. In Butta, we set this as a base and try to serve any queries designers, and customers may have. We understand this is a relatively new concept in Nepal.

Regarding products, currently, we have around five varieties of t-shirts/tops for both Men and Women. The materials used are all pre-shrunk cotton (The kind of preprocessed cotton that won’t fade or shrink). We will also be adding new products alongside these in the future. Our priority is putting art in apparels.

Also, since we’re on the topic, you will see a new category of product-line up in Butta in little over two months’ time.

For outside valleys, we ship our products through channels of already built Courier services.

Q: How do you ship the product to the customer?

A: We’ve tied up with a couple of logistics companies for the delivery of the goods inside the valley. We also have our business team for delivery in case of emergencies.

For outside valleys, we ship our products through channels of already built Courier services. For international deliveries, we use DHL.

We charge no extra for the shipping of the products within Nepal.

Q: Do you have a shop where customers can come directly to design?

A: Currently no, we do not have a store/workshop where any designers can come in and design. However, any designers are always welcomed in our office to sit with us and design along or just chat. And as always, the coffee’s on us.

Q: How & Where do you print the designs that the customer orders?

A: We have two printing options, screen printing and digital printing (a relatively new concept in Nepal). We’ve been doing screen printing for custom t-shirts for a while now (in Threadpaints). We’ve now added state-of-the-art Digital printer for printing on apparels so that people can have more flexibility in the print designs.

All the products we provide are manufactured and printed by us. This way we can have better control of the quality of the goods we advocate.

Q: What troubles have you faced? (Troubles that you and your team face while printing and shipping)

A: Though the idea of Butta has been around for a long time, we officially launched Butta on September 1st, 2015. The market was perfectly ripe then. Unfortunately, we had to stop our operations prematurely due to the infamous nationwide blockade. That was a significant step backward for us.

So basically our troubles are closely intertwined with what typical Nepalese call as difficulty. Besides, it’s a startup company; we have a major crisis every other week.

Q: How do you promote the website?

A: We believe our early adopters and prosumers are an integral part of the overall market base. So we try to provide as excellent services as we can. In turn, our customers will vouch for the promotions and referrals. We also try to be involved in any art/design related activities are happening around the town.

We also promote our website and brands using social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube. Find us there.

Q: What plans do you have for the future?

A: We want Butta to be a place where creators can earn living through their creativity and consumers can silence their inner desire to be distinct from the rest.

We have a few plans in this general direction. We will have to wait for the overall picture.

A place where the user is given full access to design his/her creation, Butta.us is one of the best online solutions for any of anyone’s printing needs. The website lets you create your prints and allows you earn some money in the process. There is also a wide range of pre-designed tees available from where you can choose your favorite design.

Team members in the photo from bottom right (moving in counterclockwise direction)

1. Soni Shah: Creative Head
2. Brazesh Jha: Marketing Head
3. Shailendra Lama: Production Head
4. Sabin Bhandari – Cofounder/CEO
5. Sabina Kharel: Intern Designer

In my opinion, Butta.us is an exciting startup. It is a unique and fascinating site where a designer can create their custom designs. They also get 50% of the profits, which sounds like an astonishing deal to show a person’s creativity and get paid to do it. The site is easy to use and the process to create the design online is easy. Designers can either create a design online or upload their designs.