Who doesn’t love hand crafted products, right? Whether you want give gifts to your loved ones or want to pamper yourselves, handicrafts products must be your first choice. Thus, when you visit The Brand Nepal 2021, this Saturday, you will see lots of Nepali handicrafts brands waiting for you. Organized by Radio Nagarik 96.5, you can see the following handicrafts brands in Brand Nepal Go Local- the carnival celebrating Nepali brands and products.

Naromi

(Sarita Nembang, Founder)

Naromi Handicrafts is a women owned and run handicraft brand established in 2020 whose prime focus is to provide easily available, affordable, and sustainable hand crafted products.

• What inspired you to run your business?

During the first wave of COVID-19, we realized there was a lack of face masks that were reusable, breathable, and comfortable all the while being safe, and that too at an affordable price. From there on, Naromi Handicrafts has gone on to manufacture and sell various other handicraft products. We have also dedicated our time and effort into employing single mothers.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur?

Patience, determination, and a good team. We may be a small scale business for now but it really does take a village and we value our team play the most.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

This is our first time working with Brand Nepal, so we are looking forward to strengthening our position as a quality handicraft business in the market and to meet new prospects.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

We have a lot of quality products to showcase at the stall, starting with our best-selling 'Naromi Mask', which is a 4 layered fabric filter mask that comes in various sizes and more than 50 patterns to choose from. Among others are our quilts, dhaka tote bags, flower pouches, hand painted tote bags, and mask accessories.

 

Kala Kathmandu

(Astha Rajbhandari, Founder/Creative Director)

Kala Kathmandu is a product design company established in 2015. We bring innovative idea to efficiently manufacture precisely engineered products. Using inspiration from material, processes, experiences, context and people, we strive to create objects and experiences which lean towards minimal aesthetics, are emotionally evoking and use precisely engineered construction. We love good design and consider it as a way of life.

• Why did you choose to be in this business?

Kala Kathmandu is all about bringing big-picture and brass-tacks thinking to your small business. Whatever your challenges, we have solutions. We are a consultative and collaborative group of professionals who have your best interests in mind, at all times. We are all about the WOW factor, and consistently deliver quality and personalized service.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur?

Being passionate towards work, deliver ideas out of the box, learn to standout.

• What are your challenges in your business?

Competitive companies who like to copy the ideas rather than working on originality.

• How do you overcome your challenges?

By never giving up and always creating something new for our market.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

More exposure of the brand and footfalls.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

Exclusive premium ceramic designs made in Nepal.

 

Masta Kala

(Arun Agrawal and Nikhil Agrawal, Co-founders)

Masta Kala was founded with a vision to create an eclectic mix of everyday products that are functional, fresh, and fun. Their line of products is primarily envisioned as gifting accessories. These may be customized for weddings or corporate agencies, bought as an anecdotal reminder or a thank you gesture by individuals, or be something one gets to pamper oneself.

• Why did you choose to be in this business?

The idea of building this business was closely entwined with a significant problem that we had identified. We found an aloofness to local gifting products due to the influx of Chinese goods when in fact, customers could place their trust in home-grown gifting solutions for a more personal experience. The belief that we could create a brand that guaranteed people this trust combined with our technical efficiency was the turning point in developing our business model.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur?

The hunger to create something new birthed Masta Kala and the continual passion for what we do helps us to serve our customers with complete dedication. Looking at our expanding network of happy customers and vendors motivates us to create better. We also believe that taking the easy way out is not the right choice when faced with challenges. Our perseverance is a key to fruition on our journey as entrepreneurs.

• What is your expectation from this year's Brand Nepal event?

We have been following Brand Nepal since we founded Masta Kala. It provides an eminent platform for emerging local brands to promote their products and market their brand identities. Unlike other events, Brand Nepal focuses equally on the online and offline promotion of the participating brands, and we are thrilled to be a part of it this year. Since this will be the first significant event after the pandemic for local brands to showcase their lines, we are expecting an overwhelming response from the audience's side.

• What can one expect while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

Our products cover a wide range from home décor to wedding décor. Corporate gifting is also one of our fortes. Although it is challenging to bring all the products, we will try to curate a selection of products that will give the audience a taste of everything we specialize in. We ardently follow the ''you say it; we make it'' ideology. So even if there is something that is not on our product line, we would love to customize it for our customers.

 

YOKO Nepal

(Sudipa Pathak, Founder)

YO-KO aspires to style must-have accessory, both as a protective gear and a style statement all the while merging design functionality and sustainability. They take pride in using local seamstresses and using locally sourced textile to produce a wide range of masks. They aim to create exquisite yet comfortable handmade products maintaining the fine quality of Nepali products.

• What inspired you to run your business?

As COVID-19 started to spread like a wildfire and plastic masks started to occupy the largest space in trash cans, we felt the need to come up with something to help reduce it and hence we came up with YO-KO. Another biggest inspiration to keep going are the people working behind the curtain. The contentment in their face when they see the pictures of the product they created and curated is unbeatable.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur?

Perseverance, ability to learn and unlearn, attention to details and ability to see the bigger picture. As an entrepreneur you have to be able to create and deliver excellent products and accept and learn from the mistakes and errors. One should be able to understand and answer Why, who, when, where and how they’re doing what they’re doing. Along the way one will face unexpected turns and you persevere through them.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

One can expect a variety of mask and mask chains and many gift options at our stall. We’re preparing for a surprise.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

This will be our first time participating in the Brand Nepal event and we’re expecting a good crowd and engaging event.

 

Craft Pasal

(Mukta Jain, Founder)

Craft pasal ventured into the trousseau packing, bespoke gifting and packaging solutions, luxury lifestyle and home décor, to add more to it we indulge into decoupage, quilling, mix media, resin art and many more.

• What inspired to run your business?

My passion towards creativity inspired me to run my business.

• What are the challenges in your business?

Creativity itself is the biggest challenge. To create every now and then something new, different and outstanding is what creativity demands.

• How do you overcome your challenges?

It’s important to overcome your obstacles. Creating the right thing at the right time will never let the hurdles come in your way.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

One can expect magnifying and beautiful decorated trays at my stall.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

It’s an honor and privileged to be a part of “The Brand Nepal” event with such talented and enthusiastic people and entrepreneurs. I want to promote the best of craft via this event. Community building is what i seek from this year’s Brand Nepal event.

 

Badge Nepal

(Anil Udaya, Founder)

Badge Nepal was started as a side hustle to provide younger generation Quarky badges and Nepali original designs but it soon grew from just badges to wide ranges of custom quarky gifts to hand pick Corporate giveaways. They provide wide variety of customable like stickers, coffee mugs, water bottles, mobile pop socket, greeting cards and almost anything you desire a print over.

• What inspired you to run your business?

Being a graphic designer it started as a hobby and a side hustle to earn extra with my illustrations and design. It was targeted for younger audience with typical nepali design and an intention to create a simple item such as a badge as an urban fashion accessory. It blew up so big that I shifted my full time over this badge making. All the peoples asking me to make newer and fun designs and people suggesting me with ideas and sketch give me extra fuel to wake up every day with yet another creative base to keep quarky deigns coming up.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur?

Dedication to keep on hitting that wall to move inch by inch every day.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

We have been part of Brand Nepal from day 1 and have seen it grow bigger and better every other year. We think it will be bigger and better than the last year.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

We have been known for selling Funny and seasonal Badges and making custom orders live on venue but this year coming big with multiple items like badges, mugs, and mask that can be completely customized on spot and printed live. And we will be bringing our new gallery of Quarky nepali origin designs.

 

Poured by Kriti

(Kriti Tibrewal Khetan, Founder)

Pouredbykriti is a homegrown small business that deals with resin products. Started their journey in the midst of the first wave of the pandemic, the hobby with an interest in arts turned into the business. Poured by Kriti provides various tables, coasters, clocks and many other products made up of resin, which you can even customize by yourself.

• What inspired you to run your business?

I have always been artistically inclined. I loved painting and sketching as a kid and I didn't realize I had left it behind until I was afraid to even pick a pencil and try sketching. It's funny how life works though, after all these years of being away from it, I found my way back to arts. In an absolutely different and unimaginable form but I couldn't be happier about it. I had had a few conversations about resin with my sister but didn't really know how it worked. Until I stumbled upon a sort of hobby class for resin and signed up for it. It was love within those 2-3 days. I knew this is what I wanted to do and after studying a little more about it and discussing with my family, my utterly loving and supportive husband, I was sure this is what I wanted to do.

• What are the key things that help you to be an entrepreneur

This is a short answer, it's just my passion and drive towards my work. That's the most important for anyone starting a new business, I guess. Other than that, my background in commerce helps strategize definitely.

• What can one expect, while at your stall in Brand Nepal?

One can expect to find all things beautiful and useful when at our stall. We are chalk full of gorgeous looking pieces that will nudge anyone visiting your home to compliment on your taste. We have a kitchenware range as well as an office desk range. There are products in between such as our tables, coasters, clocks and geode art pieces that can fit anywhere and any aesthetic you are looking to create. The great thing is we also customize (depending on the size of your order) so we can fit all your requirements and reasonable timelines.

• What is your expectation from this year’s Brand Nepal event?

The expectation is to spread more awareness about resin products, PouredByKriti and what we do here and build the right market space for the same. I say, "right" because this is a very niche, albeit versatile range that we offer. People still are not aware of this elegant solution to there design problems and I am here to rectify that. There is so much potential here and so much more to experiment. I see myself taking a step forward in the that direction with this collaboration and serve my clients with the best.