ux case study · crowdfunding commerce · india
Threadfold
A crowdfunding platform for custom apparel, designed from nothing: design a tee, set a goal, and sell it before a single shirt is printed.
Role
Senior UX / UI Designer
Domain
Crowdfunding commerce
Platform
Responsive web + mobile
What I owned
Project Overview
The short version
Threadfold was one of India's first crowdfunding platforms for custom apparel: design a tee in the browser, set a goal, and sell it before a single shirt is printed. I led the UX and visual redesign end to end: the Design Studio, the campaign flow, the buyer journey, and the Raiser dashboards. Covered by national newspapers and the startup press; national children's charities ran campaigns on it.
Role
Senior UX / UI Designer
Company
Threadfold (anonymised)
Platform
Responsive Web + Mobile
Scope
End-to-end product redesign
This is the oldest work on this site, from 2015, and it stays because the product was ahead of its time. Threadfold grew out of a college project into one of the first t-shirt crowdfunding platforms in India, and I owned the interface end to end, reframing it as a single, cohesive platform.
The redesign had one job: take a process that used to span six disconnected tools and vendors, and make it one calm flow anyone could finish in an afternoon.
The model in one line
You publicize. We produce. You keep the profit. Nobody pays upfront and nothing is printed until the campaign is funded.
Primary Users
Campaign Raisers
Students, clubs, bands, artists and small brands who run a campaign with no upfront cost and no inventory.
Cause & NGO Raisers
National children's charities raising funds and awareness through merchandise campaigns.
Buyers / Backers
Supporters who land from a shared link or a Facebook ad and order the tee, which is what funds the run.
Selling custom merch meant juggling a stack of tools
core challenge
One tool to design, another to mock up, a printer with high minimum orders, a way to take payments, and your own shipping. Every handoff added cost, dependency and risk before a single shirt sold.
A stack of disconnected tools
Nothing talked to anything, and the creator carried every handoff.
Cost and risk upfront
High minimum orders and pay-first printing put real money on the line before any demand was proven.
Promote to strangers
Campaigns lived or died on a link dropped into Facebook ads, so the funnel had to convert cold traffic.
The redesign bet
If one platform owns the entire journey, design, pricing, payments, production, shipping and payout, then a creator can launch with zero upfront cost and nothing to wrangle but the idea.
- One platform for all
- Zero upfront cost
- Nothing to wrangle
How a campaign works
The whole product is one loop, surfaced right on the homepage, so a first-time raiser gets it before they sign up.
Design in minutes
Pick a product and color, drop in artwork or text, and preview it live with an instant base cost.
Set your price and promote
Choose a goal, an end date and a per-tee price; the flow shows the minimum profit before launch. Then share the link.
We produce, you profit
Goal met: Threadfold prints, ships and transfers the profit. Goal missed: nobody pays anything. No inventory, no risk.
Structuring a stack of tools into one platform
A creator tool, a public storefront and a back office in one place, organized around three jobs: create a campaign, back a campaign, manage what you launched.
One journey, two sides
The raiser designs, prices and launches. The buyer arrives from an ad and orders. Everything in between, production, payments, shipping, is the platform's job, not theirs.
From graybox layouts to the final product
The heaviest screens blocked out in grayscale first, a few layout options each, pressure-tested on their core job.
The Design Studio: design in the browser, nothing to install
Instead of design software, an export and an email to a printer, a creator designs right here, with a live preview and a running base cost, inside the flow that ends in a live campaign.
No installs, no handoffs
The file never leaves the platform on its way to print.
Live tee preview
Front and back, real product colors, and a curated artwork library.
Cost as you go
A base cost sits beside the canvas, so the economics start before the campaign flow opens.
Making the money obvious
The pricing step is where most platforms hide the economics; I pulled them into the open. A goal slider, an end date and a per-tee price update a live minimum-profit figure, and the no-risk promise sits beside the CTA.
Set Your Price
Goal, end date and selling price update a live minimum-profit figure.
Add a Description
The story and details that make a campaign shareable.
Campaign Page
The public page a raiser shares to convert cold traffic into buyers.
Running the campaign after launch
Orders, goal progress and payout, in the same calm, single-focus language as the studio, so going live never felt like switching products.
Order Tracking
Orders and campaign progress at a glance.
Payout
The profit transfer view, where the whole model pays off.
Stories
Real campaigns and causes, doubling as social proof for the next raiser.
Desktop to mobile
Most ad traffic landed on phones, so the model collapses to the same three promises in one scroll: Design in Minutes, Set Your Price and Sell, We Produce You Profit.
What it was, and what I'd do differently
an honest note
I won't invent numbers for this one. What stands is the work itself and what the press recorded at the time.
What the record shows
- One of the first crowdfunding platforms for t-shirts and custom apparel in India.
- Covered by national newspapers and the technology and startup press.
- Used for college tees, fan groups, artwork and social causes, including campaigns run with national children's charities.
- Reported by press to have grown quickly through 2014 and 2015.
what I'd do differently
- The Design Studio offered everything at once. I'd stage the controls harder: a sellable design in three taps, power revealed later.
- We designed desktop-first; most ad traffic arrived on phones. I'd lead with the mobile campaign flow next time.
- The goal, price and profit screen was strong but untested with real raisers. I'd put it in front of actual first-time creators before build.
thank you for reading.
If you'd like to talk through this project or how I approach end-to-end product design, I'd love to connect.